


Father Figures

by CatalenaMara



Series: Secret Identities [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 1980s, Canon Divergence, Father issues, Homophobic Language, Internalized racism, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Recovery from amnesia, Thunder and Lightning, magic sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 05:55:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12834729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatalenaMara/pseuds/CatalenaMara
Summary: When Loki finally broke the terms of Odin’s banishment of Thor and restored Thor’s memories, he knew how everything would go from there.  They’d return to Asgard, and their lives would likely return to the way they were before.Except Thor, traumatized by the onrush of his memories of 40 years of a mortal life, not only does not want to return to Asgard, he is having a hard time separating one identity from another.  Loki finds himself in a position he’s never been in before and does not know how to handle.  Everything’s going to change, and for once Loki is without a plan.“Father Figures” is a sequel to the previous story in this series, “Secret Identities”.  See Notes for a summary of this story.Thor had always been the anchor in Loki’s life, the rock he danced around, solid, sure, always there.  No matter how far afield he went, no matter how he mocked him and chafed at his brother’s arrogance and foolhardiness, he never once thought Thor would not be a presence in his life.When the Allfather had banished Thor, Loki had pinned his goals on finding and saving him.  Now he had – and it was as if where that rock had stood, only broken pebbles remained.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to my betas [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Tenaya/profile)[**Tenaya**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Tenaya/) and [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/profile)[](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/)**Muriel_Perun** who kept me on course when I was flailing in every direction. I could not have finished this story without you.
> 
> Many thanks also to [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/monkiainen/profile)[**monkiainen**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/monkiainen/) and  for the art/fanmix collaboration.  
> [Check out her art and fanmix here](https://wordsbym.livejournal.com/37034.html)
> 
> Inspired by the original Marvel 1960’s Thor storyline, where Thor’s secret identity was Dr. Donald Blake. In that storyline, Odin’s punishment of Thor for his arrogance was to banish him to earth, make him mortal, give him a disability, and give him amnesia. Dr. Blake doesn’t discover his true identity until, on vacation in Norway, he stumbles across an alien invasion by the Kronan, finds Mjolnir in a cave, and becomes Thor.
> 
> In “Secret Identities”, Odin then falls into the Odinsleep and doesn’t wake up. Though Loki is at first delighted by Thor’s punishment and the opportunities it gives him in Asgard, years pass quickly and he starts to realize Thor could die in his mortal form, either by accident or old age. He makes several attempts to reverse Odin’s spell, with no luck, until he finds just the right bit of trickery to unlock the secret of the spell and restore Thor’s memory and his powers. But Thor can’t let go of his mortal identity as Donald Blake and asks to be taken home – to his mortal dwelling in upstate New York. 
> 
> This story starts at this point. Thor needs to make a decision as to whether to stay on earth or return to Asgard. And Loki has a big decision as well – will he keep his knowledge of his Jötunn heritage a secret, or reveal the truth to Thor? Because Thor, as the mortal Donald Blake, was raised by human parents, and knew all along he was adopted – and Loki has very complicated reactions to this information.
> 
> NOTE: The character of Donald Blake was retconned at least twice in Marvel history, and likely several more. In all the research I’ve done, I never discovered what exactly his disability was, except that he walked with a limp and used a cane. I chose polio as the cause of his disability.
> 
> I chose to set these stories much earlier than the MCU version because I needed at least a 50 year span of time to tell these stories and I didn't want to write future fic.

NEW YORK STATE – Fall 1980

One moment, they had been standing in the kitchen of a mountain lodge in Norway.  A lodge Loki had found quite suitable for his purposes at the time – either a retreat for himself to recover from another failure to restore Thor’s memory and powers, to search for some new option.  Or a place of celebration of success, Thor restored and whole and ready to return home with him.

It hadn’t exactly happened like that.

Yes, he’d been able to create a spell that used illusion to allow Thor, in his mortal form as Donald Blake, to act heroically to save another’s life.  His life.  A spell which left him in no danger whatsoever, but would – hopefully – lead Thor to the type of heroics that might break the hold of Odin’s spell.  That might restore Thor’s memory and powers.

It had worked perfectly, and though Thor had seemed disoriented at first, Loki had never been in doubt that shortly they would return to Asgard.  What would happen after that– he didn’t know.  He hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Then Thor had said something that had shocked Loki to his core.  When Loki had offered to end his exile and take him back to Asgard, Thor had made a most astonishing and disturbing request.

Thor had asked Loki to bring him home.

To his mortal self’s meager dwelling in a mortal village named Kingston.

After his first stunned moment Loki had instantly grasped the benefits of postponing their return to Asgard.  It was suddenly, glaringly obvious what would happen if he did so.  Everyone would swoon over the golden prince, ignorant and blind to the damage his mortal life had done to his mind.  And Loki, of course, who had been serving as Asgard’s de facto King for decades now, would once be again relegated to the shadows as the Realm Eternal held a feast more splendid than any before it to welcome the return of the first born son and heir apparent. 

Would any remember Thor’s initial disgrace?  Would any care?  It was only Jötnar Thor had slain, after all.  Loki’s gut twisted.  Noticing that he was rubbing the skin of his left hand, he snatched his right hand away as if he’d been burned.  Though the two realms were now at peace, due to his successful conclusion of the negotiations with Jotunheim, he knew full well the people of Asgard still viewed Jötnar as little more than monstrous beasts. 

If they ever learned the truth about him…

No.  That information must remain forever a closely guarded secret.

The answer to the tangled snarl in his mind was simplicity itself.  He acceded to Thor’s request to open a rift from Norway to North America.  To take Thor to his mortal home.

An instant later they had arrived in Donald Blake’s living room.

Dark drapes shielded the windows, only slivers of the full daylight outside penetrating the dimness.  The air in the house felt stale, dead, as if it had been a much longer time than just a few days since Blake had last been here.  Since Thor had last been here. 

Thor’s grip nearly crushed Loki’s hand; he pressed back equally tightly.  Thor’s arms fell to his sides, but he kept his grip on Loki’s hand.  Thor set Mjolnir down on the carpeted floor with a muffled thunk, looking around him with that same lost look that had been on his face so frequently since Loki had been able to restore his memory.

Loki looked around the small living room.  He’d seen it many times before, always under a cloak of invisibility that had allowed him to spy on Thor’s mortal life.  He’d spied on him sometimes as a prelude to one of his visits.  He’d looked in on him at other times just to reassure himself by seeing with his own eyes that Thor was alive and well, though heading rapidly toward a mortal death as the years went swiftly by.

Little had changed in the room since the last time he’d looked in.  There were different magazines neatly stacked on the low table in front of the sofa.  The room still held its plain heavy dark tables, one hosting a bulky television set.  It was still surprising to see bookcases filled with books, mostly medical books and adventure novels.  Realizing that Thor, in his mortal form as Donald Blake, read for pleasure and knowledge was still a shock.   He supposed that, relegated to that frail and damaged mortal body with its limited capabilities, books offered their own escape.  Still, the idea that Thor, in any situation, would have sought knowledge, other than the arts of war for its own sake, was still difficult to believe. 

Thor was still clinging tightly to his hand.  He took a hesitant step forward.  Loki followed, not letting go of his hand as Thor moved slowly forward then paused between the sofa and two chairs.  He stared at them, all upholstered in a nubby beige fabric, only a few shades lighter than the brown carpet covering the entire floor.  The dark drapes shielded most light from coming inside, leaving the room looking dim and almost shabby.  The only things of interest in the otherwise dull room were two paintings of stormy ocean scenes displayed on two of the white walls.  Storm-black, lightning-filled skies crowded violent waves, the only spots of color the atmospheric dark blues and violets and the greenish hue of the white-highlighted waves.

Loki hadn’t given Blake’s surroundings much thought before, aside from finding them pitifully small and unworthy of a prince, but the lack of golds and reds startled him now.  Thor had always been such an overwhelmingly _bright_ presence; so much so that it was often a welcome relief to retreat to the green darkness of his own chambers.  This darkness in Blake’s home, this lack of attention to what Blake had surrounded himself with made Loki realize how little he had speculated about what Thor the mortal had felt and experienced at those times when he had not been present.  His need to restore Thor’s memories, coupled with his need to manipulate Thor into fulfilling the desires Loki had long fantasized had caused him to miss part of the picture, and this was unsettling. 

Thor moved forward again, one hesitant step after another, looking around the room as if he were seeing it for the first time.  He paused by a stack of machines on shelves in a cabinet.  Two large devices, their fronts clad in black cloth, flanked the cabinet.  Loki knew the whole setup produced music.  Three shelves on a nearby case held many dozens of the round black vinyl platters called “records”, which contained in their etchings the music Blake enjoyed.

“How could you possibly live in such small chambers?” he said finally, tone light, wanting to break the somber silence. 

Thor glanced at him.  “I suppose they are.  I didn’t think so.  Before.”

Loki squeezed his hand.  Thor gave Loki a tentative smile.  Something twisted in Loki’s heart, an unexpected dismay at this further evidence that Thor had truly changed.  He kept feeling unaccustomed emotions, and didn’t like it.  Much as he’d always hated Thor’s overwhelming self confidence, arrogance and ego, this uncertainty, this hesitation, chilled him.  _This isn’t what I wanted.  Not at all._

He was getting tired of feeling this way. 

A loud ticking noise made the silence in the room even deeper.  Loki looked around and identified the sound as coming from the gold metal and wood timekeeping device set on the mantel of a small fireplace. 

Thor dropped Loki’s hand and wandered over to the mantel.  He touched the clock.  Squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again.  “My father bought this for my mother for her birthday one year.  She loved it so much.”  He stopped, gulped, and went on in a watery voice.  “She was killed in a car accident just a few months later.”

Loki drifted over to his side, looked at the Midgardian timepiece, his thoughts disordered.

Thor’s mother.  Blake’s human mother.

Thor’s adoptive mother.

And Thor clearly didn’t find that knowledge disturbing. 

 _He had known he was adopted all his life_ , Loki thought, and the treacherous thought followed:  _What if I had been told when I was younger?  Would it have made my life easier?  Or would it have cast further shade upon my life, knowing that I was the child of an enemy?  A child they had abandoned?  A monster?  Who knows what madness it might have brought to me?_

Thor sighed, his enormous great chest pushing out a large gust of air.  He trailed his fingers down the curved side of the clock then dropped his hands to his side again.

He turned to Loki and suddenly was hugging him, crushing him close, his whole body shaking with sobs.

Without thinking, Loki embraced him, held him tightly, his hands moving instinctively in slow circles around the broad back.  Thor leaned his head against one of Loki’s shoulders.  Loki felt his garment dampening with tears.  Thor’s warm breath tickled his ears, and for the first time in his life he had absolutely no idea what to do.

Thor had always been the anchor in his life, the rock he danced around, solid, sure, always there.  No matter how far afield he went, no matter how he mocked him and chafed at his brother’s arrogance and foolhardiness, he never once thought Thor would not be a presence in his life.

When the Allfather had banished Thor, Loki had pinned his hopes on finding and saving him.  Now he had – and it was as if where that rock had stood, only broken pebbles remained. 

A cold harsh feeling settled in his gut.  He’d wanted Thor back.  He’d wanted THOR back.  A better Thor.  Someone who didn’t blunder thoughtlessly through life, careless in word and action. 

A Thor who loved him and admitted that love.

Someone more like Donald Blake.

But without this wracking sorrow.  Not this disturbing reaction to the shock that the life Thor had lived for nearly forty mortal years was not truly his life.  Or only his life.

Loki thought suddenly of a Jötunn hand on his arm, and shuddered.  His life had changed in an instant.  So had Thor’s.

He tightened his embrace and whispered meaningless words in Thor’s ears, half in the past himself, at that moment of shock when that icy hand had shattered his vambrace and that blue had washed over his flesh, feeling again his stunned response to the irrevocable change that could neither be denied nor accepted.

Thor stood up, blinking away tears, and Loki let go of the embrace, rubbing at his left hand.  “Sorry,” Thor muttered, his voice rough.  Tears still clung to his eyelashes.  “Sorry.”  He rested one hand atop Loki’s head, brushed it down the length of Loki’s hair.  “Thank you,” he said, and Loki managed to smile.

Thor stood staring at him for another long moment, and Loki offered brightly, “I can make this room look like anything you want.  Your chambers on Asgard?  Just tell me and I’ll do it.”  _Say yes,_ he thought desperately.  _Say you want to be Thor again._

Thor was silent a moment longer, then shook his head.  “No.  I wanted to come home.  And here I am.”  He cast one more glance around the room while Loki still stood, stunned at the revelation that Thor no longer viewed Asgard as his home.  Gone was his glee in the thought of Thor willingly accepting his exile from Asgard, replaced with a desperate need to truly have his brother back. 

“I want some coffee,” Thor suddenly said, and turned in the direction of an archway leading into another room, Loki, feeling at an utter loss, followed right behind.  The clock’s ticking accompanied them out of the room and into the dining area.

It was as small and cramped as a peasant hovel on Vanaheim.  A dark wood table with four matching chairs with white seats occupied the center of the room.  A mahogany sideboard, the top section displaying fancy dishes behind glass panels, stood against the further wall.   The walls were covered with some kind of faded fabric or paper depicting a repeating green-and-gold pattern.  A few small pictures hung there, showing various landscapes. 

“Charming,” Loki commented with an insincere smile, gesturing at the walls.

Thor followed his gesture and shrugged.  “It was like this when I bought the house.  I never got rid of it.  I always liked those colors.  They reminded me of something.”  His gaze settled on Loki again.  “They seemed like home to me.”

Loki glanced at the green and gold pattern again, then back at his brother.  Tears were welling up in Thor’s eyes again, and Loki, pushing back a wave of his own sentiment, reminded him, “You wanted coffee?”

He followed Thor into the kitchen where Thor retrieved a can of coffee and a device for making the same.  He poured in water, then put the brown grainy powder into a metal cup and set it inside the top of the device, topping it with another metal cap with a glass handle.  The device then began making strange burbling noises.  Clear water began appearing and disappearing in the glass handle, turning brown after a few moments.

Thor opened a white-painted wooden cabinet and took out two mugs, both with serpent-and-staff logos and the names of different medical institutions on each.  He poured coffee into them, retrieved a container of sugar and a spoon, added a spoonful to his mug, then offered it to Loki with a questioning look on his face.

Loki, having experienced the vile beverage on various excursions, added two teaspoons of sugar and took a cautious sip.

Coffee was just as bad as he remembered it.  Thor, however, was drinking it down as if it were the finest mead, and it was only after he finished quaffing the entire cup he reacted with surprise. “That was pretty hot, but it didn’t bother me at all.”  


“Of course not,” Loki snapped.  “You’re not mortal anymore.”

“You’re right.”  Thor stared at the mug for a moment pensively, then suddenly shrugged his massive shoulders.  “I’m starved and there’s nothing in the house.  Let’s go get something to eat.”

He was striding to the door, still dressed in the breeches and undershirt he customarily wore beneath his armor, when Loki stopped him with a touch to his shoulder.  “Do you wish to go out among the mortals as yourself or as one of them?  If any others are about they may wonder at strangers coming from Blake’s house, particularly considering how we are clad.” 

Thor looked utterly poleaxed for a moment.  “I hadn’t thought…”  He stopped and gave Loki a helpless glance, looking over his clothing.  Loki was still wearing the informal Asgardian attire he had summoned to himself earlier that day when they had still been in Norway.

“Brother, it would be easy for me to cast a glamour.  You can even take your toy.”  He gestured toward Mjolnir, lying abandoned in the middle of the carpeted floor.

A flare of anger entered Thor’s eyes and Loki chuckled.  After a moment, Thor smiled too.  He reached towards Mjolnir, which leapt into his hand.  As it did, Loki gestured, and Thor, now Blake, looked down at the illusion of his mortal body, Mjolnir in disguise as the cane in his hand.

Thor looked up and his eyes widened in surprise at the sight of Loki who was also wearing a mortal guise.  Loki had chosen the same suit Thor had worn when he had met him in that bar in the island city of Manhattan a few mortal years earlier, and he saw by the expression on Thor’s face that his brother remembered that meeting.

“Your hair,” Thor began. 

“Do you like it?”  Loki ran one hand over the illusion of his cropped locks, feeling slightly encouraged at the look in Thor’s eyes.  Now that Thor had Mjolnir in his grip again he seemed to be fractionally less lost.  He gave Thor a dirty smile.  Thor swallowed, his pupils enlarging, and Loki felt immense satisfaction at knowing his brother was thinking of what had happened after they’d left the bar and gone to Blake’s hotel room. 

“It is passing strange,” Thor admitted.  “Thank you, brother.  I confess – I know not what to think.”

Cold settled on Loki’s skin again at these words.  “Blame your father,” Loki said bitterly.

Thor looked at him sharply.  “You told me so much last night, yet I understand it so little.  We have much to discuss.  I still have many questions.”

Loki wasn’t sure if he wanted this discussion now.  “After a meal, I think.  Did you not claim you were ‘starved’?”

Thor smiled and shook his head.  Loki felt heartened by even the slightest return of his confidence.

“Let’s go,” Thor said.

They headed outside into a crisp cool daylight, its intense brightness contrasting with the shuttered darkness of Blake’s house. 

Thor descended the steps quickly and strode down the walkway then made a right turn onto the sidewalk paralleling the street, holding his cane as if were still in Mjolnir’s shape.  Loki matched his pace.  “Brother,” he said, then slowed his pace until Thor turned. 

Loki came to a complete halt.  Thor stopped as well.  “What?”

“Brother.  Blake does not walk like that.”

Astonished, Thor stopped, glanced at his cane then looked down at his legs.  He looked back at Loki.  “You’re right.  I don’t.”

 _Still thinking of himself as Blake one minute, as himself the next._ Another wave of frustration and concern rolled across Loki’s mind.  He stepped forward, setting a slow pace.  Thor walked by his side, using his cane, favoring one leg, but Loki realized with an inward sigh that Thor’s gait looked artificial and studied.  He worked on additional details of his illusion until he was satisfied others would perceive Blake as he normally moved.

The sidewalks and lawns were littered with brown and orange leaves.  Leaves still clung to the branches of the trees lining the streets, but even as they walked a slight breeze came up and several detached from the trees, drifting and floating on the air, then settling down to resting places on concrete and grass.  Here and there a lawn was neat and clean, and in two places young boys were using a long-handled implement to gather the leaves into piles.

They each looked up as they passed, and shouted, “Hi, Dr. Blake!”

Thor paused and gave each of them a bright smile.  “Hi, Jack!  Hi, Greg!”

Thor didn’t offer to introduce him, and Loki couldn’t decide if this angered him or alarmed him.  Perhaps the fool was finally being cautious about what he said, but it was best to be prepared to converse with other mortals.

Thor kept walking, and Loki kept pace by his side, his mind alive with dozens of possibilities and plans.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki stared at the brightly colored laminated menu.  Bright puffy letters proclaimed the place as “Molly’s Restaurant”, an echo of the large, bright sign outside.  This eating place Thor had brought them to had no pretensions whatsoever to being a fine dining establishment.  It was noisy and cluttered and had far too many people - including several children and two screaming babies - packed in the booths and at various tables.  Several people were smoking those “cigarettes” so many mortals favored; the smell of their smoke filled the air.  They’d clearly managed to arrive at some midday Midgardian mealtime.  It reminded Loki of the lower taverns on the outskirts of Asgard’s main city. 

A tall woman, wearing a black-and-white checked dress with an apron tied around her waist, approached.  A broad smile stretched her brightly-painted red lips.  Loki took in the details of the crow’s feet by her eyes, the lids of which had been tinted blue and lined in black.  A mass of puffy blonde hair that was another color entirely at its roots threatened to escape the ties and pins she’d used to hold it in a bun on top of her head.  The woman appeared older than their mother, but peasant as she was, still working in this menial position.

“Don!” she cried.  “I didn’t know you were back.  I want to hear all about your vacation.  Later on, when things calm down a bit.”  She gestured at the packed tables with the pad of paper she was holding.

“Hi, Molly,” Thor said.  His warm welcoming smile, the brightness of his eyes, stirred another thread of resentment in Loki.  Thor was just as free and easy with his affections on Midgard as he was on Asgard.  He didn’t know why this should surprise him.

“The usual?” she asked and he nodded.  She started at Loki with frank curiosity.  “How about you?”

Loki chose a fish sandwich, a salad, and tea.  She made a quick note on her paper pad and was off again.

“You know a lot about life… here,” Thor said.

“I’ve been visiting.  Ever since… you were a child.”

Sadness again crossed Thor’s face.  “I was such a fool,” he said suddenly.  He looked down at the table, the illusion of Blake’s thin torso slumping.  “This is all so strange,” he said, nearly inaudibly.  “This is my home.  I know these people.  And yet…”  His voice trailed off again, and he swallowed.  “I remember you – how often you visited me.  All those times.  Lebanon.  New York City.  The Catskills.  Here, in my office.”  His gaze darkened at that memory, and Loki stiffened, remembering how he pretended to be a patient and attempted to seduce Blake and how poorly that had gone.  He was well aware of what Thor’s reaction to his memories might cost him.

But Thor had moved on to another memory.  “And when I was a kid.”  Thor was staring at him intently, as if trying to see something else.  Someone else.  “You walked down the street with me.  You said you were from Norway.  I thought you were a war refugee.  I saw you – so many times.  And yet, every time, I forgot.  It’s all coming back to me now.”

“The spell insured you’d never remember me, nor any who tried to visit.”  Thor looked like he was about to ask a question, however Molly arrived with their drinks, Coca Cola for Thor, and a cup and a silver pot with hot water and a tea bag for Loki.  Loki put the tea bag in the hot water, listening as Thor thanked Molly, well aware of her curious glances in his direction.

“Best not to discuss this here,” Loki suggested, always more aware of the need for secrecy and discretion than Thor had ever been. 

Thor was looking around the restaurant.  “You’re right.”  A couple saw him glancing at them and waved.  He waved back.  “Bob and Alice,” he explained.  Loki hoped he wasn’t intending to get up and speak with them, but Thor turned his attention back to Loki.  “Tell me a little about your travels here.  You seem to know so much – more than if you had only visited me those few times.”

“I have visited many major cities.” Loki poured his tea, took a sip, and wrinkled his nose.  “Los Angeles, Bombay, Berlin, Rio de Janerio, Riyahd, Nairobi…”  Thor listened, bemused, as Loki added city after city to the list, only pausing when Molly delivered their lunch. 

“Why so many?” Thor asked, before taking a huge bite of his cheeseburger.  Loki paused to sample his iceberg lettuce-and-pale-tomato-slice salad.  He looked at it with disfavor and continued talking.

“I am curious about Midgard.  How everything has changed since last we visited.”  Loki was pleased that Thor continued to listen to him intently as he told him a few anecdotes about his travels.  Thor finished his cheeseburger before Loki had eaten half his salad, and had devoured every one of his fries before Loki finally turned his attention to the fish sandwich. 

The restaurant had mostly cleared out when Molly took the opportunity to come back and ask about their dessert order.  Loki could see Thor looking longingly at the menu and he knew perfectly well that the meager meal wouldn’t have been enough to satisfy Thor.  But Thor restrained himself and ordered apple pie a la mode and another Coke.

“Anything for you?”  Molly looked at Loki, her curiosity clearly eating at her.  Loki declined, and she left.

Molly was back in a minute with Thor’s coffee and apple pie covered with melting vanilla ice cream.  “You haven’t introduced me to your friend,” she said to Thor, studying Loki with frank interest.

“I’m Luke Furst,” Loki said smoothly as he could see Thor about to stumble over his words.  “I met Dr. Blake in Norway.”

Thor nodded and smiled, a relieved look on his face.  Molly gave him a quizzical look.  Not for the first time Loki wished Thor’s expressions weren’t so transparent.

Molly turned her attention back to Loki.  “What brings you to our little town?”

“The same reason that brought Donald to Norway,” Loki explained.  “I’m on vacation.  Donald said he’d show me around.”

“So I guess you’re not back for long?” Molly asked, turning back to Blake, not even trying to hide her curiosity.

“I haven’t decided,” Thor said, and Loki felt something cold cramp inside him.  But Thor was still talking.  “I need to figure some things out.”

Molly gave him a close look, and Loki saw, with surprise, that the illusioned face of Blake looked haggard and worn.

“Are you OK, Don?  Maybe Norway didn’t agree with you?”

Blake gave her a half laugh.  “If Lebanon didn’t do me in, Norway sure wouldn’t.   No, I’m fine.  Just jetlagged.  We just got back.” 

Loki smirked, and Thor gave him a look.  Thor then asked Molly about her daughter, who was apparently away at some institute of mortal learning, Loki gathered, given the amount of detail Molly went into, along with the promises of “showing Don some pictures” next time she saw him.

That subject exhausted, Molly turned her attention back to Loki.  “What’s your line of business?”

So obvious.  Thor actually looked embarrassed.  “Medical supplies,” he explained and gave Thor a smile just on the edge of dirty.  “We actually met some years ago.  At a medical conference.”

“In New York City,” Thor added.

Molly looked like she was itching to ask for more details, but more people walked into the restaurant and with obvious reluctance she tore herself away and went to greet the newcomers and wave them to a table.

“I’m still hungry,” Thor grumbled after he finished every bit of his dessert. 

Loki said in a low tone, “You require much more food than Blake did.  We will go acquire more provisions after we leave here.”  Thor nodded enthusiastically. 

Molly came by again with the check, and some parting words, “Hope to see you around here again.  You know you’re welcome any time.”  There was a knowing, self-mocking coquettish tone her voice, and Thor gave her a charming smile.  She winked as she headed back to another table and quickly got caught up in a raucous exchange with those patrons. Loki repressed a scowl.

Thor reached into a pocket and frowned.  He stared at Loki, crestfallen.  “I forgot my wallet.”

“No, you didn’t.  Check again.”

Thor gave him a look, reached into the pocket again – and produced a wallet, from which he extracted green Midgardian currency.  “The money isn’t going to disappear when we leave, is it?  I don’t want to cheat her.  Because I remember that time on Alfheim…”

Loki couldn’t resist laughing.  “Now that was fun.  The look on their faces when – “

“ – they sent a troll after us to take revenge – “

“ – which you disposed of in short order – “

They grinned at each other.  Then Thor frowned again.  “Who did you steal it from?”  
“Worry not,” Loki said, “It came from a supply in your abode.”

Thor suddenly was struck by a thought.  “My luggage!  My passport!  Where are they?”

“I suppose you can call your hotel in Norway to find out.”

Thor frowned at him.

“Or…”  Loki paused to concentrate.  “You could look inside the second room on the first floor of your dwelling.  The one with the desk.”

Thor barked a laugh.  Loki basked in his sudden bright smile, so like sunlight beaming through breaks in thunderclouds, all the brighter for the contrast.

“Let’s go to the grocery store,” Thor proposed, standing up.  “And,” he stopped to think, “I need to go to the Post Office.  I stopped my mail before I went to Norway and I need to pick it up and restart it again.”

A minute was wasted while Thor explained what that curious phrase meant.  Thor then took the money to the counter and paid the woman standing there, then left quickly before Molly had the chance to approach again.

* * * * *

Loki relaxed in the ridiculous metal and plastic contraption Thor called a “lounge chair” and sipped from a glass of red wine while watching Thor set up a cooking contraption in his back yard.  He had purchased an enormous quantity of meat and other food items, and now proposed to grill the same.

Loki, having informed Thor he had no intention whatsoever in assisting in such menial chores, took another sip of wine and enjoyed the spectacle of Thor performing what, even in Midgard, was considered primarily the work of female servants or peasant’s wives.

The afternoon had proved… interesting.  Loki, trailing his arm off the lounge chair, found he was drumming his fingers against its metal leg.  He made a conscious effort to still his hand.  He curled his hand into a fist, extended his fingers, then rested his forearm across his abdomen.  He tried to relax even as his mind insisted in replaying one memory after another from earlier in the day.

First stop:  The “Post Office”.  After they’d left Molly’s restaurant they’d walked along a few tree-lined streets until they’d reached their destination, a low-slung corner brick building.  Once inside Thor had taken a position at the end of a line of Midgardians who stood like petitioners waiting to speak to the King, a necessity which caused Loki to roll his eyes.  Thor was quickly caught up in conversation with a couple of the locals ahead of him.  Both of them had greeted Thor on the friendliest of terms, expressed their delight at seeing him again, talked about all manner of trivia, and tried unsuccessfully not to dart questioning looks in Loki’s direction.  For his part, he’d smiled politely and wished them gone.

One, a woman named Louise, with curled grey hair and piercing eyes, peculiarly large behind the glass lenses she wore, had the effrontery to ask Thor if he was going back to the city or planning to open his office again, and if so could she see him regarding a stomach complaint she had.  Loki felt himself go very still as he waited for the answer, gripped by the feeling that Thor was moving further away from him with every minute; that Thor himself was disappearing and Blake emerging.  He hadn’t been reassured by Thor’s answer.  Thor gave the woman a charming smile and said that he hadn’t made any plans yet, but if he did reopen his office he’d put an announcement in the “local newspaper.”

Janice, a younger woman ahead of her in line, had straight blonde hair and the same sort of bold cosmetics Molly had worn adorning her face.  She, obviously flirtatious, posturing to emphasize her bosom, seemed far more interested in finding out about his vacation, and wanted to know how the women in Scandinavia compared to American girls.  Loki had passed the time imagining what manner of foul creatures he could transform her into.

Finally, Thor’s turn came.  The servants behind the counter greeted him respectfully and shortly he was given a large stack of envelopes both large and small, magazines, and packages. 

They walked to a nearby green space and sat down on a bench where Thor sifted through the mail, setting aside a stack of what he called “junk mail” and sorting magazines, most of which concerned medical matters, and various types of envelopes.  Some envelopes had clear portions showing some of the information in their interiors, others were made of better quality paper.  There were a couple of packages as well, one of which he explained was from his cousin Chuck and was probably a “birthday gift.”

Cousin.  Yet one more link Thor had to his mortal life.  Loki kept the expression on his face to one of mild interest and fought to contain the uneasiness surging inside his mind.

Thor opened one of the envelopes and became engrossed in a two-page handwritten note enclosed inside a card depicting a bouquet of flowers.  “From my Aunt Sally,” he explained.  “I told everyone I was going overseas and now they want all the details.”  He opened another of the better quality envelopes, explaining it was from “Chuck,” and pulled out a card.  The image on the card depicted a nearly naked woman posing improbably in a seated position inside a cocktail glass partially filled with a fizzy liquid, complete with a straw and a cherry on the bottom.  Her legs dangled over the side, her face an open invitation to carnal pleasure.  The caption read, “Happy Birthday!  Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.  Chuck.” 

Thor made a noncommittal sound and slipped the card back in its envelope.  “Typical,” he said. 

“Fandral would like that one,” Loki observed, managing to keep his voice level, worms of resentment and dismay persisting in their attempts to take up residence in his mind.  How many mortal friends and relatives did Thor have anyway? 

“Nowhere near as sophisticated as Fandral,” Thor muttered, his attention now on another handwritten letter.

What worth were these ties to Thor?  There he sat looking at the mail he held in his hands, a pensive look on the illusion of his thin mortal face, a disguise Loki suddenly wanted to tear away and expose him as he truly was to the mortal world.  He wanted to break his ties to this pathetic place.  He wanted to take him home.

He did none of those things.  He looked up as yet another mortal approached, calling, “Don!  Great to see you!”

“Hey, Hal!” Thor said, standing up.  Loki noticed with a sinking heart that Thor had now lost any hesitation in interacting with these mortals.  He had seemed genuinely glad to see them all.  Loki found himself gripping the edge of the bench, appalled by the realization that Thor’s awkward playacting at being Blake had somehow slipped away during the hours they had been out, and now it was Blake who answered the other man’s greeting.

Loki removed a ferocious scowl from his face before Thor noticed.  The man stopped right in front of the bench where they were seated, a welcoming smile on his craggy face.  His iron-grey hair attested to his middle years.  Intelligent cunning blue eyes looked out from under bushy graying eyebrows.  He treated Loki to one appraising glance, before turning his attention to Thor.  They shook hands, and Thor glanced at Loki, who rose with indolent grace and was introduced to “Harold Miller” who was apparently an important local businessman with some connection to a trade organization called the Chamber of Commerce.

They chatted for a few minutes about people whom Loki didn’t know and didn’t care to know, speculated about the chances of a sport’s team victory, and then Harold got down to business.

“So, Don, are you planning to reopen your office?  The permits have been approved for the new medical building and there’s available space.  With Dr. Murray retiring, there’s definitely a need.”

Loki had given Thor a sharp look, but Thor, focused on Harold Miller, didn’t notice.  But the other man did, and he again gave Loki a speculative look.

“I haven’t made any plans as of right now,” Thor was saying. “Working in Beirut opened up my eyes to a lot of things about the world I’d never thought about before.  I’m going to take some time to consider my options.”

“Doctors are needed everywhere.  Why not here, in your home town, where your roots are?”

“I’ll think about it,” Thor promised, and Loki kept his breathing even as he saw a sudden longing in Thor’s face, the type of expression that indicated he was on the verge of making a snap decision.

Then Thor glanced at Loki, who smoothed out the expression on his face a fraction of a second too late.  Thor turned back to Harold.  “I’ll be in touch.  I just got back and want to settle in a bit before making any decisions.”

The man nodded, not in the least bit discomfited, and slapped Thor’s shoulder.  Loki pushed back his anger at the familiarity.  After exchanging some final pleasantries and offering Loki a brief nod, Harold strode off.

Thor noticed Loki watching him.  “Let’s get some groceries and go home.”  He headed off on the diagonal sidewalk leading out of the park, expecting as always that Loki would be at his heels.

Loki stayed where he was.  “Brother.  Your cane.”

Thor turned abruptly, startled and a bit abashed.  He remembered to limp as he walked back to the bench and retrieved his cane, leaning on it a bit too heavily as he turned again.

“If you’re going to do this you need to be more attentive. My illusions can only do so much.”  He gestured toward the cane.  “I wonder if she feels slighted by your brief abandonment?”  Loki could hear the spite lacing his voice, but didn’t care.  Thor looked upset by the thought and glanced apologetically down at the cane. 

Thor said, “We’re going to need the car.  I want to buy a lot of food, and Blake can’t carry everything, even with your help.”

They’d spent the rest of the afternoon retrieving the car, a blue vehicle named “Cadillac Eldorado,” then driving to the “grocery store” and purchasing a large quantity of meat and other foodstuffs.  There, to Loki’s dismay, Thor had been accosted by three more mortals.  Thor, even as a mortal, still managed to win the favor of all who knew him, which it appeared included half the inhabitants of this insignificant little village.   It seemed possible he had nearly as many admirers here as he did in Asgard.  Loki had tried to tamp down the simmering jealousy struggling to break free while Thor engaged in pointless and tedious conversations with them.  He only succeeded in putting on the blank face he’d always used to mask his emotions for many years now.

Finally, to his relief, they returned to Thor’s residence.  Thor put everything away in the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets while Loki watched, still bemused at seeing his brother engage in so many menial chores, not a servant anywhere to help him. 

He said as much, and Thor replied, “If we stay here any length of time I’ll call my cleaning lady and let her know I’m back.  Though,” he chuckled, and glanced at the black communications device on a side table in the dining room, “she probably already knows.  I expect at least one person has called her by now.”

Thor glanced around the kitchen again, then back at Loki.  “What do you think of my hometown?”

Loki put his best smirk on his face.  “Quaint,” he drawled.  “I see the locals have the same propensity to gossip as all of Od—Father’s court,” he commented.

Thor punched him in the arm and Loki affected a put-upon expression.  “You…!” Thor said goodnaturedly and pulled him into a hug, bringing his forehead against Loki’s. 

Loki fell into the embrace, tilting his head and settling it against Thor’s neck, enjoying the warmth and strength of Thor’s massive arms, palpable beneath the illusion.  Thor’s familiar scent of ozone and rain-swept earth enveloped him. He inhaled deeply.  He kissed the edge of Thor’s bearded jaw.  Turning his head, Thor’s lips met his and their mouths hungered on each other for a long minute.

When Thor took a half step back, his eyes were glowing.  Not quite yet the blue-white lightning that filled his eyes at peak power, but a promise of the same.

One huge hand caressed the side of Loki’s face, and Loki pressed his own hand against it.

Then Thor’s stomach rumbled and Loki laughed.

Thor grinned ruefully and glanced toward the kitchen.  “Dinner,” he proclaimed, and then stated his intention of barbecuing.

Which activity he was engaged in now.  Loki chugged down the rest of the wine, and poured another. 


	3. Chapter 3

Thor was a good cook, Loki had to grant him that.  The meat was of acceptable quality and properly grilled, as were the sliced vegetables he had also prepared for their meal.  He indulged himself for a minute in a fantasy of Thor doing the grilling for an Asgardian hunting party, dressed in Blake’s Midgardian clothing of khakis and a T-shirt, serving himself, Fandral, Volstagg, Sif, and Hogun, taking the role of a servant.  He pictured their wide surprised eyes, their jests.

“Why are you smiling, Brother?” Thor asked, after demolishing the last piece of a giant slab of steak.

“You are an excellent cook, Brother.”  Loki turned his smile into one of indulgence.  “Truly, Midgard has brought out hitherto unknown talents in you.”

Thor smiled goodnaturedly.  “I’d be happy to teach you the basics.”

Loki gave a delicate shudder.  “I’ve already expressed my views on this subject.”

Thor set his plate aside and began cleaning the cooking equipment and setting everything to rights.  He then settled on one of the deck chairs, dreamily looking up into the sky, where the first stars had come out.  Loki gazed ahead as well, across the expanse of green grass that was littered with dead leaves and surrounded on all sides by a tall wooden fence, its upright planks held together by crossbeams.  Trees towered everywhere, half-obscuring the sight of the neighboring dwellings.  The trees were two to three times the height of the structures, their half-naked branches still clinging to a few remaining leaves. 

The air was cool and pleasant.  A slight breeze came up and Loki watched a handful of leaves skittering and darting across the grass.  Loki’s mind was never still, but for the moment he was almost content.  He relaxed further into his chair.  He stared past everything, mind drifting from the present to the past.  This moment echoed like many others earlier in their lives.  Images of quests he and Thor had gone on flashed through his mind:  in search of some magickal treasure or stalking some dangerous beast, in the mountains of Vanaheim, in the forests of Alfheim, or questing further afield.  Thor’s voice rumbling as he talked about whatever crossed his mind.  Just themselves alone, perhaps lying on grass after swimming in a river or slaying a rampaging beast.  Or coupling, Thor’s face above his, their naked bodies close, Thor deep inside him, eyes lightning-wild as he came with a roar of ecstasy.  Lying side by side after, Thor drowsy, he wakeful, his mind always full of plans.

Then he up glanced at Thor, struck by how his face had subtly changed, become more like the illusion of Blake, his expression one of more maturity.  More settled, more responsible, more aware.

He looked around at the fence and the neighboring dwellings, so different from any on Asgard.  Midgard was so alien.  He had spent so many years trying to undo Odin’s spell, to get Thor back.  But now, successful, with an outcome he never expected, with Thor so very much changed, no matter which direction his mind darted no answers or potential schemes presented themselves.

He felt unsettled.  Enough so, that Thor gave him a searching look and asked, “What troubles you, brother?” it was a surprise to see concern on his face.  He had not thought Thor that perceptive.

Loki had no honest answer to that.  The questions, _Do you wish to stay on Midgard?  With your mortal friends and mortal family?_ trembled on his lips and remained unspoken.  “Nothing at all,” he said in reply.

Thor gave him an unexpectedly perceptive look.  He leaned forward and extended a hand to Loki, who took it.

“Thank you,” Thor said presently, rubbing his thumb in circles just beneath Loki’s forefinger.  “For coming for me.”

He had said it before, but Loki didn’t remind him, glorying in Thor’s newfound appreciation of his worth.  Instead, he gave Thor a bright grin.  “Asgard was dull without you.”

“Ah, brother.”  Thor’s gaze darkened, his expression turned somber.  “Of what you have told me of the doings in Asgard, how found you the time to be bored?”  He pulled his hand back and let it drop to his thigh.  His eyes were troubled.  “Tell me of Mother.  How does she?  Is she well?” 

“Mother is well.  She was filled with concern for you, but as Heimdall has doubtless told her of your recovery, we can both be assured her fears are now eased.”

Thor nodded, twisting his fingers together, a deep furrow between his brows.  “Tell me all again, the way you told me in Norway.  I could not think well when I first heard your tale.  I have many questions.”

“As I told you, we are at peace with Jotunheim,” Loki began.  He told it all again, of Odin falling into the Sleep after banishing Thor, and that he yet remained in the Sleep after all these years.  He spoke of all the work Frigga and he had put in to their attempts to unravel the spell of mortality and amnesia that Odin had placed upon Thor.   He glossed over the details of the long negotiations with Jotunheim.  He described the Ambassador’s party in detail in the hopes that Thor would not think to ask questions he did not want to answer.  He never mentioned that the Jötnar had demanded Asgardian deaths, Thor’s foremost among them, as reparation for their losses. 

Thor listened intently, his body tense, his expressions ranging from guilt to self-recrimination, to sorrow.  Then Thor asked the question Loki did not want to answer anyway.  “Did they not want more as weregeld?”

“All who take part in negotiations want **_more_** ,” Loki replied.  “The trick is to give less while making them believe they have obtained more.”

Thor smiled at that.  “You have always been suited to wars fought with words.  I would not have had the patience.  Or the skill.”  His gaze darkened again.  “I’ve learned patience, but not subtlety.  Tell me again of all you did on Jotunheim.”

Loki, relieved that Thor had not pressed for more details, began with the lie that all others save Frigga believed: of how he had shapeshifted into Jötunn form in order to wield the Casket and live on Jotunheim.  He went into complicated detail about the work he had done there to rebuild their capitol and to restore the power to their machineries.  He spoke of what he had learned from the Jötunn smith Skadi.  He spoke little of Laufey.  After he had spoken at length Thor, looking overwhelmed, did not question further. 

Loki went on to describe how he had finally realized the way to restore Thor to himself had been far simpler than all the complex spells he and Frigga had designed.  “The All-Father’s mind is complex and subtle; it didn’t occur to me he would use simplicity as a strategy.”

Thor swallowed heavily.  “You and Mother have both ruled wisely.  Father was wise.  I have much to atone for.”  He took Loki’s hand again, squeezed it tightly.  “Thank you,” he said again.

Thor looked back up at the sky, eyes pensive.  There was a crescent moon on the horizon.  “I wish we could see Asgard from here.”

“You can see Asgard any time you like.  We can call Heimdall, return now.” 

Thor hummed.  “There is no rush.”  Loki clenched his hand in startled response. 

Thor searched his face, “Is there any need?  All is well, as you have said, unless,” he frowned, “there is aught you have not mentioned?”

“All is well in Asgard,” Loki said truthfully.

“Then is all well with you?”

“Of course it is,” Loki said, unwilling to reveal how all the changes in Thor wrought by his long years as a mortal were forcing him to see Thor in an entirely new light.

“Do you wish to return to Asgard on your own?”

“No,” Loki said quickly, then more slowly.  “No, I do not.  So, you wish to stay here?”

“For a time.  I need to think about things,” Thor said, then, troubled by whatever he saw in Loki’s face, added in a voice that held a slight tone of dismay, “We have stayed away from Asgard many times on our quests.  And you – how many years have you spent in Alfheim’s libraries in the company of their scholars and sorcerers and near forgot to ever return?”  Thor lifted Loki’s hand and kissed it.  Loki hummed at the pleasure of the touch, reassured that Thor only meant to stay on Midgard for a brief time.  The transition from being solely Blake had been a shock to Thor; it made sense that he needed time to recover, to be himself again. 

Thor’s eyes, intensely blue from an inner light despite the growing darkness of the Midgardian sky as its sun disappeared beneath the horizon, were filled with concern.  When Thor enlaced his fingers with Loki’s own, Loki pressed back.

“What do **_you_** wish, brother?” Thor asked. 

“Nothing, for the moment.”  He saw from the discerning look on Thor’s face that he remembered perfectly well that Loki’s moments of contentment were very short. 

“Then I have a wish.”  Thor looked down at their joined hands, gave him a suggestive smile, then cut a brief glance toward the house.  “My bedchamber is small and poorly appointed, by Asgardian standards, and yet it is available.”

Loki was pleased at the familiar sight of lust in Thor’s eyes.  “Yes, I have watched you sleeping in it.”  A shadow passed over Thor’s face, and Loki hastened to add with a cocky smile, “A meager bedchamber indeed.”  He rubbed his fingers against Thor’s hand.

“And we have done worse.” Thor gave him a winning smile.

Loki grinned.  “On Vanaheim, in the rain – “

“The hunter’s cottage – ” Thor said, with a look of satisfied reminiscence.

“It smelled of wet wolf – ” Loki reminded him.

“I cared not,” Thor said.

“Of course not.” Loki, his hand still clasped with Thor’s, stood, Thor following.  Loki turned toward the house and glanced back at Thor.  “Shall we?”

*****

Faint moonlight filtered through partially open blinds, more than enough to see clearly.   Thor, in silence, quickly divested himself of his clothing, removing t-shirt, khakis, and undergarment, in scant moments.  Loki followed more slowly, undressing in the Midgardian way, unbuttoning one deliberate movement at a time, pinching the edges of his shirt with long fingers and moving the fabric aside to reveal a strip of pale skin.  Thor’s gaze went hotter, and Loki gracefully pushed the fabric from his shoulders, caught the cuffs of his shirt, pulled slowly, then dropped the shirt to the floor.  He relished the way Thor’s hot gaze followed his hands as they descended to his waist, undid the fastening to his trousers, and pulled down the zipper by slow inches. 

He divested himself of the remainder of his clothing by magic, standing an instant later tall and nude, rays of moonlight washing through the slats of the blinds to cross his body with a pattern of shadow and light.

Thor’s bed was big enough for both of them, but not by much, and the bedding was of decent enough quality, for Midgard.  Thor guided him to lie on his back, and bent over him, pressing gentle kisses to his face.  Loki opened his mouth as Thor’s lips approached his, and welcomed his tongue inside. 

Thor pulled back an inch and gazed into Loki’s eyes, with an extraordinary expression of love, a look whose like Loki had never seen before.  That look of pure love filled Loki’s mind almost completely, quieting the thoughts in his head until he could scarcely hear them.  Thor ran one hand along Loki’s hair, then trailed fingers across his forehead, his cheekbone, his jawline, as if he were touching something so rare and precious it was difficult for him to believe it was in his grasp.

Loki stretched and moaned appreciatively when Thor turned his attention to his neck, turning it slightly to give him access to one ear.  Heat was pooling in his cock, not quite hard, not yet demanding.  He was content to encourage Thor with featherlight touches to his broad shoulders, his massive arms, content to lie there while Thor worshipped him with every touch.  Thor’s mouth moved lower still, his beard scraping against sensitized skin, and he hazily wondered if Thor intended to have him.  Thor’s teeth closed gently on one nipple and he gasped, pleasure zinging through his body, cock hardening.  If Thor wanted to have him, he decided he’d permit it.  Just as he had hundreds of other times before.

One of Thor’s hands grazed lightly up the side of his cock.  Loki gasped and thrust up as a thumb circled the head.  Pleasure blazed through him as Thor tugged lightly at the foreskin, then clasped his cock, dragged to the base and back to its head.  Loki dug his fingers deep into Thor’s shoulders as Thor moved, lowering his head, opening his mouth wide, taking Loki in.  Thor, on Asgard, had always refused to do this before, though it had always been his pleasure to have Loki service him.  The sight of Thor’s face, bent to its task, cheeks hollowing with suction, and the memory of how Thor, as Blake, had done this willingly that night in the forest, excited him almost unbearably and he could hear his voice keening with pleasure.  He tangled his fingers in Thor’s hair, holding his head steady.  His breath came in enormous gasps as Thor sucked and swallowed, taking the entire length into his throat. 

He cursed as Thor pulled back, hair slipping through Loki’s grasp.  Thor rolled away, and Loki glared at him in disbelief as he fumbled inside a bedside table drawer.  “What are you **doing**?” he demanded, and then stared in astonishment as Thor pulled out a tube of that mortal lubricant, squeezed some into his palms and rubbed them.

“I can do that without all this trouble, you know,” he grumbled, his straining cock pointing toward the ceiling.

Thor was in a similar condition, his cock hard, needy, weeping.  He forgot his own need for a second in the pleasure of seeing sweat shining on Thor’s magnificent body, his hair draggled half into his face, his eyes glowing bright, his face lost to lust.  Thor glanced once at his hands, then Loki.  “I forgot,” he admitted, and kept Loki from saying anything else by taking hold of Loki’s cock instead of his own, and covering its length with the slick.

That, Loki hadn’t expected, and he was temporarily struck speechless as Thor moved quickly, positioning his body above Loki’s.  Thor reached down, shifting position as he expertly guided Loki’s cockhead to his entrance.  Loki sucked in a breath, a vivid picture of Thor on his knees before him the previous night, willingly allowing him entrance into his body for the first time in his right mind.  Loki was still astonished that Thor would do this thing and his skin flushed at the angered memory at the many times Thor had done this with mortal men.  Then he forgot everything as Thor bore down and he bucked up.  Breathless with pleasure, he grabbed for Thor’s thighs and hung on as Thor moved up and slid down.  He gasped at the tightness, the feel of Thor’s body stretching around him.  Thor’s mouth was open, his chest heaving.  He was panting, sweat sliding down his forehead.  Thor’s cock was rock hard and an angry red, but Loki made no move to touch it, lost in the sensation of fucking up inside his brother.  Thor’s eyes were half shut, a lightning white gleam showing through his lowered lashes, brows furrowed in concentration. 

Thor found his momentum quickly.  Loki bucked beneath him, his hands moving restlessly, one digging into a massive thigh, the other hand finally finding and grasping Thor’s cock.  He pumped it.  Thor made a wrecked, desperate sound and quickened his movements.  Sensations shot through Loki’s body like lightning through sky.  He kept his eyes open, watching Thor’s face, glorying in Thor’s mastery in his mortal form, then all thought vanished as he peaked.  He squeezed his eyes shut, crying out with ecstasy.  Seconds later, his brother’s seed splattered across his belly.  He slitted his eyes back open, sparks dying away along the ends of his nerves.  Thor was breathing heavily, his head hanging, his hair obscuring his face.  Loki lifted one hand and caressed one cheekbone, then brushed Thor’s hair away to the side.  Thor moved up, and Loki’s softening cock slipped out.  Thor stared down at him in wonder and love.  He bent down to kiss Loki’s mouth, to card his fingers through Loki’s hair.

Loki returned the kiss, their mouths soft and gentle.  He guided Thor to lie on his side next to him.  Loki rolled on his side to face him, trailed his fingers through Thor’s hair, and moved forward for another kiss.  Thor was still looking at him with reverence, and Loki felt his lips move into a delighted smile. 

“I love you,” Thor said.  Looking into those blue eyes, so full of love, so earnest, Loki could not doubt that he meant it.  All these centuries and now everything had changed. 

Loki hugged him close, kept his arm wrapped around Thor’s waist.  There was a part of him, still angry that Thor had denied him this equality all these years.  There was a larger part, languorous in love, filled with sentiment, urging him to speak.   And it seemed now all Loki’s words had deserted him, his silver tongue always ready for lies and misdirection, manipulation and mischief, was stilled now, uncertain what to say.  “Brother…” he started, then closed his mouth again.  He did not know how to speak these words, truth much more difficult than lies, so instead he used his mouth to cover Thor’s lips with gentle soft kisses.  Glorying in the strength of Thor’s arm around him, he moved his own hand in circles along the breadth of Thor’s shoulders. 

He tilted his head back slightly.  “Thor,” he said, putting what he was felt into that one word.  Thor smiled so beautifully it hurt, and by his expression he knew that whatever Thor saw in his face was enough. 

Thor was still caressing his hair in long slow strokes as Loki settled into sleep.

*****

Loki woke some time later to find himself on his back, Thor on his side next to him, one heavy arm clasped possessively around Loki’s waist.  Thor was sound asleep.  Moonlight through the blinds shone platinum on his hair and eyelashes.  Loki let himself drift for a minute, remembering the feel of Thor’s lips on him, his hands on him, caressing him as if he were the most precious being in the universe.  Looking at him with a love that verged on worship.  It had made him feel good – almost better than he had ever felt.  Now, watching Thor, he was struck by how young his brother looked. 

Donald Blake had looked so much older than Thor did now.  A remembered surge of fear filled Loki for an instant at how close he had come to losing Thor to death.  At the mortal age of 40, Blake he had already lived half of a human lifetime.  He had been only a few short years away from losing Thor forever.  If his final plan had not worked…

But it had worked and Thor’s lifespan, memories, and power had been restored.  Studying his brother’s youthful features, peaceful in sleep, Loki felt a surge of protective tenderness toward him.

How was he to deal with this?  Blake the man, mature and skilled, hiding his secrets, fighting for the lives of the vulnerable.  Thor, younger and confused.  Both the same, but so very different. 

Blake, the man Thor had become by following the path Odin chose for him, becoming a man Odin would not recognize.  When Odin woke – if he woke – what would he think of his changed son?  Would he feel that Thor had truly learned the lesson he had desired him to learn?  Or would he be dismayed at finding his son so changed, the lesson learned all too well?

He did not know.  Thor, now a man of peace, had not proved worthy until Loki had deceived him into battling a monster.  Were all the lives Dr. Blake had saved not enough to make Thor worthy? 

And what would Odin say to him?  How would he look upon his Jötunn son, now that Loki knew the truth.  Would he, finally, find Loki worthy?  Would all the work he had done to keep the peace with Jotunheim, to keep the kingdom stable, be what Odin desired?  The words Odin had thrown at Thor, in such rage and disappointment – surely he would approve of how Loki had achieved peace without battle, without bloodshed? 

Or would he?  Loki realized he had grown confident in his life and his position, but now everything was changing and worries from the past were back full force. For an instant Loki feel as if all the years had fallen away and he was the younger brother again, the one who had been passed over for the throne.  The one who would never be chosen for the throne.

There was no way of knowing what Odin thought or what he might do. Not for the first time he grudgingly admitted that Odin’s mind seemed quite as complex as his own.

And if Odin did not wake?  Loki watched the slow rise and fall of Thor’s chest, listened to his even breath, and wondered.  When they returned to Asgard, what would change?  Everything?   Nothing?

Would Thor simply revert to what he was before, despite 40 years as a mortal?  Would he become that thoughtless reckless prince again?

But what if it was Blake who returned to Asgard?  A man who knew the cost of battle, the price paid in blood and pain and suffering, who did not glory in death but struggled mightily for the lives of others? 

Before, he had thought it likely Thor would want to resume his status in Asgard.  Before, he desired Thor to remain on Midgard.  Now, watching Thor sleep beside him, he wondered if Thor were truly changed for all time.

He’d known when he’d decided that he needed Thor by his side, that by bringing Thor home he’d probably lose his position as Co-Regent.  The people, he had no doubt, would wish Thor to rule by Frigga’s side until and unless Odin awoke.  But would Thor even want the kingship?  He seemed so uncertain about even returning to Asgard.  Years ago, before he had realized that Thor was in danger of mortal death, Loki would have been delighted at that possibility, encouraged it in every way.  Now, he was surprised to find, the idea brought an odd sharp twist of disappointment.  He didn’t want things to be the way they were – and now, he realized, they would never be again.  What would the future bring?  How could he shape it, change it, bend it to his liking?  Plans started dancing in his head about how to maintain power should Thor wish to claim the kingship. What to do if Thor chose to stay on Midgard. What to do if Thor returned to Asgard but chose not to accept the kingship. So many possibilities, so many paths to the future winding off in every direction. 

What would be the results of this change in their relationship?  Thor needed him.  He had never truly seemed to need Loki before.  He’d been all too content to spend time with his other friends with Loki too often an afterthought, an obligation. 

Thor’s new need for him, his dependence, his love – such a startling, wondrous thing.  And yet it was not unalloyed, precisely because it was unexpected.  Loki had not thought of this.  He had not planned for this.  In all the infinite possibilities he had considered – he had never considered this.

And when they returned to Asgard – would Thor still need him in the same way?  He was so very changed – was that change past reversing?

Loki realized that he too was different as well.  Though Thor still remained the older, and though he had always felt he far surpassed Thor in wisdom, in an odd way he felt that he had surpassed him in years as well.  It was almost as if Loki were the older brother, and Thor the younger. 

It was an odd sensation.  He had thought it would be pleasing.  He had thought he would savor it.

He did not.

Light was creeping back into the sky when he finally fell asleep again.

*****

The freezing touch of Jotunheim’s chill air on his skin.  Jötnar corpses piling high around him.  Blood bone brains guts -  hearing his own voice bragging and taunting, feeling his right arm hurling Mjolnir again and again -

Thor woke suddenly and found himself in the darkness of his bedroom.

Blake’s bedroom.

**_His_** bedroom.

Still half in the grip of nightmare, swallowing against nausea, he looked around.  Loki lay sleeping next to him, tousled black hair stark against the white pillowcase.  In the dim early morning light sifting in through the curtains Loki’s face looked bloodless, black eyelashes merging with the shadows beneath his eyes.  Thor stayed utterly still for a moment, remembering the pleasure of their lovemaking, but the horrific dream images crowded back in, sickening him, making him feel unworthy of any such tenderness in his life.

Moving carefully so as not to disturb his brother, Thor got to his feet and slipped silently out.  He barely made it to the bathroom before he fell to his knees before the toilet, unable to keep the hideous images of himself severing limbs, crushing skulls, of blood dripping down Mjolnir’s haft, from crowding back into his mind.

Finally he stood, still feeling sick.  He moved to the counter.  Rinsed his mouth.  Splashed water on his face.  Then again.  He dropped his hands to the counter.  Gripped the edge.  Stared at his reflection in the mirror.

Thor.  Blink.

Blake.  Blink.

Thor.  Blink.

He rubbed one hand over his bearded jaw.  Felt his mind go blank. 

Blood. 

Battlefields.

Corpses.

Thor.

The edge of the counter shattered in his grip.  He stared down at his hands, uncut by the broken ceramic shards.

Blood.

Scalpel. 

Suture.

Blake.

He stared back into the mirror.  Thor stared back.  His face, strange and wrong.

Memories slipped past and around him like swift-moving fish in a stream, each vivid and bright, then another following just as quickly, and he trying to make sense of them all.

His dreams had been filled with chaos and blood.  Gore, dismembered bodies, corpses on the battlefield, some on Jotunheim, some in Beirut – the men Thor had slain, the men Blake had lost on the operating table.  The righteous battles Thor had won, the lives Blake had saved in a makeshift hospital in a basement.  Thor’s quests to save others, his joy in the accolades of the citizens of Asgard.  Blake, speaking confidently at a medical conference, enjoying the company of his peers.

The darkness of the times when the death of others had been sacrifices to Thor’s ego and arrogance. 

He felt sick at this thought; sick at even the idea of returning to Asgard to be welcomed home as Odin’s son, Prince Thor, when he felt every step he trod was stained in blood. 

He couldn’t.  He just couldn’t return.  How to make Loki understand?  He felt closer to Loki than he had ever done before, and yet he felt ever more sure he might lose him.  Yesterday, Loki had been full of cheerful smiles, eyes bright, but there had been a darkness in his gaze, currents of worry and fear, and Thor knew it was for him. 

How could he make Loki understand the tangle in his thoughts?  Loki had explained that Mother had been Regent all these years, that she had made Loki Co-Regent and allowed him to take most of the power into his hands.  Had not Loki and she brought Asgard and Jotunheim to peace?  Surely Asgard would remain safe in her hands, with Heimdall watching over all.  They had not needed him.  Not at all.  A thought crashed upon him, humbling, devastating:  They were better off without him.

How could he explain why he could not return to Asgard?  Would he even need to?

He couldn’t return.  Not now that he knew what a monster he was.

He deserved Odin’s punishment. 

He needed to atone.

He rubbed one hand over his bearded jaw.  Then opened a drawer.  Pulled out what lay inside.


	4. Chapter 4

Loki woke some time later to full daylight.  He stretched luxuriously.  A low buzzing sound was emanating from the bathroom.  Naked, he went to investigate – and found Thor engaged in a most peculiar activity.

Peculiar for Thor, that is.  Loki stared in astonishment at the device Thor was holding to his face, then at the scissors on the counter, the hair in the sink and scattered all over the adjoining counter.

Thor paused in what he was doing.  He was holding the electrical implement some Midgardian men used to remove beard stubble.  One side of his jaw was pink and smooth.  On the other side, his beard had been cut raggedly short, doubtless by those small half-open shears on the counter.

“Did you – “  Loki stopped because it was obvious what Thor had already done.  “You cut off your beard!” he said, his voice higher than he wanted it to be.

Thor shrugged, but there was a strange look in his eyes, an almost defensive cast to his posture that Loki found disturbing.  “It’s easier this way.”

Loki pushed back against a rising unease.  “You don’t have to do that.  The illusion will appear any way you wish.”

Thor rubbed a hand along the shaved portion of his chin and jawline.  “I’m used to it.”

“ ** _Blake_** is used to it,” Loki said hotly.

“Brother,” Thor said, setting down the shaver on the counter.  “I **_am_** Blake.”

Loki felt breathless at the definitive tone in Thor’s voice.  He managed to speak, after a minute.  “I am surprised you wish this.”  He waved a hand at the mess in the sink, for the first time noting that part of the counter edge was broken and broken bits of tile littered the floor.  Thor saw him staring at it, and gave him a stricken look.  Loki looked away and pasted a smile on his face, deliberately keeping to the conversation.  “Thor, beardless like a young boy!  What will your friends say?”

Thor looked relieved at his lack of comment on the broken tile.  “It will grow back when I wish it to.  The battle, for mortals, is to keep it away.  It is a daily struggle.”  His lips curled up in a small smile, but Loki’s unease didn’t lessen. 

Loki took a deep breath and searched for another tack.  “Well, how about a mustache?” he said lightly.  “Isn’t that what most mortal men are wearing now?”  He grinned at the thought.

“Some, yes,” Thor admitted easily.   “Maybe if I was living in Manhattan…  You know, I’ll think about it.”  He studied his denuded upper lip.  “Too late for today, though.”

“I can just see their faces now.”  Loki smiled and named the court’s most notorious gossips.  “Why, they will be having such a wonderful time, speculating on the mighty Thor’s embrace of Midgardian customs.  The things they will be whispering!  You know what they have said about my beardless state _all these years.”_   He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his last few words.  “Mayhap you’ll now enjoy my reputation.”

Thor, looking ridiculous with a half-shaven face, set his hands on Loki’s shoulders and gazed earnestly into his eyes.  “I do not know if their opinions on customs such as this matter at all to me anymore.  Why do you still seek to provoke me?” 

“I do not know,” Loki said, subdued, then added a cheeky grin.  “Ah, Thor, who would I be if I didn’t?”  Thor grinned and ruffled his hair.  “Well, you may well start a new style in Asgard.  I can imagine it now.”  Loki set a look on his face as if he were speaking to someone not present.  “Ah, noble Fandral, how dashing you look with your hairless pink chin and those golden mustachios!  The ladies are doubtless swooning at your feet.”

Thor laughed at the image, and Loki relaxed.  Thor picked up the shaver, turned it on and Loki watched, bemused and disturbed, as he systematically removed the rest of his facial hair, then applied some sharp-smelling cream.

Once done, Thor surveyed his face quizzically in the mirror. 

“Would you like me to make it so you see the illusion I have cast on you at all times?” Loki reluctantly asked.

Thor’s expression changed, and there it was again, that uncertainty Loki would previously have crowed in delight over and now found unsettling.  “Yes,” Thor finally said.  “Yes, I think that would help.” 

It wasn’t much of a magickal adjustment.  Still, it took longer than it should have for Loki to tweak his working.

Thor stared at his face in the mirror.  “How old I took, compared to what I truly am,” he mused.  He touched his finger to the mirror, traced the beginning of crows-feet by his eyes, the frown lines that had begun to appear, the deeper lines around his mouth.  “I look near as ancient as our old history tutor.”

“How he despaired of you!”  Loki smirked, and Thor smiled.  “Imagine his face, if we should tell him of all the books you possess, all the knowledge you have learned, in one short mortal life.”

Thor’s face grew moody again.  “It must have been strange for you to see me age.”

Loki thought to make a jest, but the words slipped out.  “It filled me with fear.  You were fast approaching death.  Anything could have taken you, any mischance, any mortal ill.  I asked Heimdall to watch you at all times and to tell me instantly should you come to harm.”

“He must have seen a lot,” Thor said, his face turning bright red.  He wet a nubby cloth, wiped his face, then tugged at his hair, which he could still feel if not see.  “Maybe I should – “

“Do not even think about unmanning yourself by cutting your hair!” Loki said hotly, even more disturbed by this prospect.  “You have done enough already.”

Thor ran his fingers through his hair, then shook his head.  “This length was recently enough the style here, though I never grew my hair this long.  Many men did.”

Loki moved to stand behind Thor’s back.  He caught his fingers in Thor’s hair, and with skilled quick fingers made a small braid.  Thor reached back and felt it.  “So you seek to make me a warrior again?”

“I do not know what I seek,” Loki admitted, instantly regretting admitting to this evidence of uncertainty, wishing he had instead made another jest.

Thor pulled him around and pressed his forehead to Loki’s, embracing him gently.  His breath came out in a sigh.  “Be patient with me.  I have much to think of, and I need your help.”

Loki returned the embrace and held him tightly, feeling the warmth of Thor’s breath against his skin, reminded anew that he had succeeded in breaking Odin’s spell, reminding himself of how long and how hard he had fought to keep Thor alive, to restore his memories and power.

Now that was done.  What would come next?  Certainly, Thor needed time to recover.  Just considering the possibility of suffering such a fate himself filled him with horror.   His imagination painted vivid pictures of how he would have reacted were he the one who had incurred Odin’s wrath, had he been exiled as a mortal to live among mortals, with no memory of who he was.  Darkness flooded his mind as he considered that horrifying possibility, and he tightened his grip around Thor’s back.  He held on to Thor as Thor held on to him; as if they were standing on a beach in the midst of a storm not of Thor’s creation, keeping their footing while waves crashed and retreated around them.

*****

Loki was glad enough when Thor dressed in his mortal clothing – Loki magicking some of better quality for himself – went downstairs and began following the routine of a mortal life.  That began with breakfast.  Thor made huge sandwiches out of the last of the meat he had grilled the day before and then they went out to purchase more provisions.  “Why Thor, they will think you are feeding mortal armies here,” Loki commented, watching Thor put away the new supplies. 

After that, Thor said he needed to spend some time in his “den” as he wanted to look through his “papers”, which meant reading through all the correspondence he had retrieved the previous day.

“Den?  Should I expect to find bears or trolls inside?” had been Loki’s comment as he followed Thor into the room next to the sitting room.

Loki prowled around its confines while Thor opened one envelope after another and read through whatever they contained.  This room had even more shelves filled with books than the living room contained.  Loki pulled out volumes at random, looked at detailed drawings of Midgardian anatomy, and pages upon pages of dense text detailing the causes and cures for various ailments.  Midgardians took ill from so many causes it was a wonder their planet was crawling with so many of them.  Billions!  The sheer number was breathtaking, more like the breeding of insects than intelligent beings.

But these books.  Learned sages had written these books.  He had to give mortals credit.  Despite their short lifespans, they had applied themselves to their learning and made discovery after discovery about their own physical nature in a relatively short period of time.  He thought about Blake’s wisdom.  Blake’s intelligence.  Something unexpected, never looked for in Thor.  He would never have guessed he had the depths for such capabilities in his nature, yet they must have always been here.  Odin had taken Thor’s memories, but not his basic nature.  

Yet here he was, a man, a healer, respected for womanly talents.  And Loki wondered at this latent untapped aptitude and talent.  Would Thor retain this, on their return to Asgard?  Would he consult the vǫlur?  Would he shun the sparring grounds in favor of Eir’s company? 

He could scarce imagine such things.  Yet Thor had unmanned himself by shaving his beard.  Would he keep it off?  How they all would laugh.  He smirked, but it faded quickly.  Much as he would have formerly delighted in Thor’s humiliation…. He no longer wanted that.  He should be amused; he should be delighted, but those thoughts seemed stale and old and something no longer a part of him.

Another thought began entering his mind – he and Thor together, laughing as they upended those restricting Asgardian traditions and created something entirely new. Oh, he would laugh at the stricken shocked faces and the tut-tuts of those wedded to tradition.

This could be great fun!  Cheered by the thought, he wandered over to another side of the room.  Most of the bookshelves here were tall.  Thor’s desk was in the center of the room.  Behind Thor, against the wall, there was a low shelving unit also containing books but topped with a dozen images of the sort produced by the devices they called cameras.  Loki went to examine them.  The images were enclosed in frames of gold or silver metals or wood.  Some were in color, others were colorless, with only black and white and grey hues showing.  Various papers attesting to Blake’s medical achievements were mounted on the wall, clearly replacing other images that had left shadows behind them.

Loki studied the images.  Blake, at various ages, was in several of them.  Loki looked over the images, his memories of Blake when he had visited him at various stages of his life too vivid to find any of them unfamiliar, and yet the still images, each capturing its own moment in time, were captivating.    Before a certain point, at a stage in Blake’s life when he had just reached adulthood, the photos were colorless.

Loki spent a moment looking at an image of the child Blake, perhaps ten years of age, holding an older woman’s hand.  This was Blake as he had seen him when he had first visited him in his mortal life.  The photo cut short of where Loki knew he’d worn the leg brace.  Already the differences in Blake’s appearance and Thor’s appearance at this same age were obvious:  Blake, as a child, had known pain, known illness, known limitation.  Thor had not.

Several of the photos showed both a man and a woman with Blake in the shot.  Loki recognized the adults as the two mortal servants who had raised Thor.  Or, the people he had assumed were servants.  Blake’s adoptive parents.   He thought of Odin, he thought of Frigga, he thought of the certainties of the life he had once had.  Of the certainties Thor must have had.

He kept looking at the images, sorrow tangling with resentment and anger.  Why the lies?  Why had the All-Father chosen this way to punish Thor?  Some sense of irony to establish a parity between the two of them, at a time when Loki had only barely guessed the truth?  Some other, unguessable, motivation? 

He re-focused on one of the pictures.  It showed the woman seated on a chair suspended by chains from a porch ceiling, with Blake in front of her, perhaps only a handful of years old, standing on one leg, making a grotesque face at the camera.

Blake, before the disease that had crippled him; an active happy child.

Another picture formally posed of the man and the woman, each much younger, he in black and she in a white dress and veil, looking at the camera, their eyes alight with joy.

Thor had abandoned Blake’s desk and joined him, almost without him being aware of it.  “My parents,” he said.  Loki inhaled a deep breath and controlled his face before he turned to Thor.

Thor’s words of only two nights before, so raw, so confused, came back to him.  He’d asked Thor how he’d found out he’d been adopted.

_“They told me when I was ten years old, when they thought I was old enough to know.”_

_“How did you feel,” Loki had asked, his voice still uncertain, “when you learned you were not the son of those who raised you?”_

_Thor considered.  “I was uncertain.  Disturbed.  It was such a hard thing to imagine that my parents were not they who sired or gave birth to me.  I wondered what had happened to my birth family.  Did they die?  Did they do something wrong?”  He rumbled a half laugh.  “Well, I know the answers now.”_

_“Odin’s punishment on you was harsh indeed,” Loki said, but Thor was shaking his head._

_“My parents – the ones who raised me – are still truly my parents.  Blake’s parents. **My** parents.”  A smile twisted his mouth.  “This is all so confusing.  My mother was a good person.  Kind, loving.  My father – well, he and I had differences.  After I got sick – he didn’t think I’d ever amount to much.  He thought it was a waste of money to send me to medical school.  But I was able to get scholarships.   We’re reconciled now.” _

“What you said to me, the other night – do you feel it odd to have two sets of parents?” Loki asked.

Thor considered.  “Well, of course I always knew I had biological parents who had to give me up for whatever reason.”  He gave a hollow laugh.  “Yes, it feels strange.  Everything does, now.”  He sucked in a deep breath, released it, and repeated his words from the other night.  “I thought maybe they had done something wrong.  Maybe they weren’t married.  I would never have guessed it was I who had been in the wrong.”

“Are you angry about what Odin did?”

Thor’s expression turned to one of sorrow.  “Yes.  No.  I deserved it.  There is still much I have to atone for.  I – “

The telephone on his desk suddenly rang, and Loki shot it an annoyed look.  A mortal convenience; Blake had three of them in his house, two downstairs, one upstairs.

Thor gave him an apologetic look and answered.

Loki pretended to turn his attention back to the photos, listening intently to every word Thor was saying.  Thor greeted the caller with enthusiasm, and began chatting about the same things he’d told half the population of this village the day before – what he’d been doing, what he planned to do.  “No.  I’m not sure yet if I’ll be reopening my office,” he said.  And later, “I’ve received offers from hospitals in Providence and Boston.”  And, a moment later, “No, I haven’t decided on anything yet.”

More chatter, about people he didn’t know, and long silences where he could hear the buzz of the other person on the line. 

He kept staring at the pictures.  One, a portrait of the woman who had been Thor’s adoptive mother, kept his attention.  She was dark-haired, with an oval face and a strong jaw.  Her dark eyes looked directly at the camera.  He stared back, but it was an image made of paper and chemicals and he knew nothing about her except what he had seen and dismissed as irrelevant those few times he had spied on Thor as a small child.

He wondered, not for the first time, if his biological mother was still alive.   He tried to imagine it, remembering the time he had spent with the Jötunn smith Skadi when he had been on that realm.  Remembered Skadi’s enormous eyes when she’d brought her rugged face close to his; the way her enormous hand had grabbed his forearm and encircled his vambrace, four fingers easily meeting her thumb as if his armored arm were nothing more than a toddler’s thin play-stick.  Of how, being there, he had felt so very _small_ , truly a dwarf in the face of giants.  What would it have been like, to be raised there, so very different from kith and kin alike?  He imagined himself looking up into faces so much larger than his own every single day.

He would have been different in every way.

He’d thought himself past this, but yet that sick twist in his belly persisted whenever he thought of his parentage.  Mother had told him that she believed his dam and two blood brothers had survived the war.  She had offered to find out for him, but he had instantly refused.

His time on Jotunheim had allowed him to wall off thoughts about Laufey:  he was King, not father, not sire, not anything to do with Loki at all.  But, he had carefully never asked about the rest of Laufey’s family during his time on Jotunheim, and Laufey had never offered to introduce him to any members of the royal family.  He hadn’t wanted to know.

He _didn’t_ want to know.

“What was her name?” Loki asked once Thor had gotten off the interminable call and joined him, looking at the pictures. 

“Carol,” he said.  “And my father’s name is Samuel Blake.”

Loki repeated the names, testing them, tasting them.  He had never bothered to learn the names of the mortals who cared for Thor in his childhood when he had thought them servants of no particular interest.  But Thor’s anguish the day before, his tone now when he spoke of his father, spoke of the ties they still held over him.

Ties he fervently wanted to break.  Thor had changed so much already – how much more would he change were he to stay on Midgard for many more years?  How many things could change, in the swift-moving chaos of mortal lives?  Would all the connections he had to mortal friends and family become of greater importance to him as time went on? 

Loki suddenly, desperately, wanted both of them back home in Asgard.  Perhaps a night’s sleep would make Thor more amenable to the suggestion. 

Seeing Thor’s shaved chin, he knew the cause was already lost.  That did not stop him from trying.  “Thor.” He made his expression earnest and bright.  “It would be easy enough to leave here – to return home.  You needn’t bother with any of this.”

“It’s not that easy,” Thor protested.

“But it is,” Loki persisted.  “I could create an illusion of your death – choose any means of it you like.  It will be easy.  All will believe.  And then any ties you have to this realm will be severed, and you can go home.  Do you not want to go home?”

His heart plummeted as he saw Thor’s sorrowful shake of his head, and knew he had gone too far. 

“So.  You’ve decided to stay on Midgard.”

“I…”  Thor swallowed, looked down.  “I’m not…”  His voice trailed off again.  “I can’t do that to my father,” he began again, voice shaky, and Loki was suddenly sure that wasn’t what he had intended to say.  “I won’t do it to him,” Thor went on, his voice steadier.  “We haven’t always gotten along – and he’s not happy with how I live my life – but he’s a courageous man, a good man, and we have lost so much time already.  Loki,” Thor paused.  “He is an old man.  It will be only for a handful of years. 

_A handful of years, and Thor becoming more mortal all the time.  Could this be of advantage to me?_ Loki tried to consider the possibilities, but all the while felt something he wanted very much was receding rapidly from him.  Loki faked a bright smile.  “Since you have you made one decision – have you made another?  Have you chosen where?”

“Here, I think,” he said slowly.  “I can do more good here than in the city.  It won’t be for long,” Thor repeated, grasping Loki’s shoulders, looking in his eyes.  “Will you stay with me?  Or,” as Loki hesitated, and sorrow returned to his eyes, “Visit, at least?”

“Well,” Loki managed a brittle smile.  “Mr. Furst is on vacation, after all.”

Thor nearly crushed him in his embrace.

_Yes,_ Loki told himself, burying his fears deep down, savoring being surrounded by Thor’s arms, his scent, his breath.  _Thor simply needed some time.  He would grow tired of mortal life.  They would return home._

_And what would happen next?_

He was good at dancing with possibilities.  He would have the time now to explore the options.  He would find a path soon, a way to make everything work.  For both of them.  He was sure of it.


	5. Chapter 5

Thor buried himself in the details of Blake’s life, all the while aware of Loki’s attention even when his brother was pretending to be engrossed in other matters, such as looking through his books or studying his family photos.  Making breakfast, going through his mail, talking on the phone, making lunch  – such mundane things, yet he clung to them like a raft in a storm, desperate to keep away the images in his mind of all the death and destruction he had caused over all these years.  

Father was right.  His punishment was just.  He deserved what had happened to him.  He had exposed Asgard to the horrors of war, which certainly would have lead to massive death and destruction.  How fortunate he was, that Loki and Mother had found a diplomatic solution, that they had saved Asgard and Jotunheim both from a disastrous pointless war, one triggered by his own immature bellicosity.

He didn’t want to think about what he had done, yet the images kept repeating in his head:  his rash vows to slay monsters, his juvenile behavior, his childish reaction to a petty insult – mere words, but how many Jötnar had he killed to avenge the insult he felt at those words?  Every minute the memories took clearer shape in his mind and became more damning.  Once or twice he’d caught himself standing absolutely still, dissociated from the world, the only thought in his mind the wish to be solely Blake again, unaware of his crimes.  He’d paid the penalty, unknowing, but now with full knowledge he knew he more than deserved it.

He needed to do something, anything, just to keep from thinking.  He rummaged in his garage, Loki trailing behind him, naked concern in his eyes.  Thor came across the rake.  Perfect.  The yard was full of fallen leaves.  He needed to clean that up.  Loki followed him back outside, then settled in a lawn chair while Thor began raking them into neat piles and shoving them into bags.  The repetitive motion was soothing; there was just enough physical movement to settle his thoughts to a controllable level. 

Thor was all too aware of the worry in Loki’s eyes, at his barely concealed dismay when he’d expressed his desire to stay on Midgard.  He was pathetically aware of his own gratitude when Loki had agreed, albeit grudgingly, to stay.  He couldn’t bear to think of Loki leaving him, of him going back alone to Asgard.  Not now.  He **needed** Loki in a way he had never needed him before: as touchstone, as anchor, as something solid to hang onto in the cyclone chaos of his thoughts. 

Blake had never needed anyone.  Not anyone close.  But that was a lie and he knew it.  Beneath the shallow encounters, the one-night stands, Blake had sometimes wanted someone to come home to.  He wouldn’t have dared, back then.  But now?  The world was changing.  Would Blake now have welcomed a lover into his life, no matter how closeted? 

The answer was settled.  Thor would, and did.  The rest was up to Loki, who was now leaning back in the chair, pretending not to watch him.

He bagged some more leaves and when he looking up again, pausing to look at Loki, he saw that his brother had closed his eyes.  Loki looked exhausted, dark shadows beneath his eyes, shadows that he’d rarely seen before, and Thor was suddenly gripped with worry.   Loki only looked as such when depleted of magickal energy.  That working Loki had done in Norway – he had not known his brother was capable of creating such a detailed illusion, powerful enough to conceal the interior of a cave and replace it with an entire landscape of trees and rocks and gullies, a tactile landscape so real Blake had not thought anything amiss.  And the towering illusion of the monster Blake had seen – the bilgesnipe in all its furious antlered glory – the detail had been so perfect he’d even imagined he’d smelled the thing. 

How his brother’s power must have grown during Blake’s absence.  Bit by bit his memories had crept back of all the times Loki had visited him, each time casting a different spell in an attempt to restore his memory and powers.  He now remembered clearly how he had felt when those first traces of his identity sought to emerge in bloody birth only to be thrust back down by the numbness and oblivion of Father’s spell.  He could only guess at the practice and skill it had taken for Loki to have so increased in power. 

The amount of magickal energy it must have taken to produce the illusion that finally broke Odin’s spell, and, later, to teleport them both from Norway to New York, must have been incredible.  Thor had not known he was capable of the latter feat until their conversation at the lodge in Norway, when he’d first began working his way through confusion and questions to gain some understanding of what had happened to him and how Loki had saved him. 

Using that much energy had clearly taken its toll.  He looked at Loki with worried eyes, but his brother did not stir.  He went back into the garage, stowed the rake, and brought out the hand mower.  Loki opened his eyes and made a few half-hearted sarcastic comments about Thor doing peasant’s work, but there was no bite to the remarks, nor playful enjoyment either, just a simple counterfeit of both, exhaustion still lying heavily on Loki’s willingness to just sit and do nothing.

By the time Thor finished mowing the lawn Loki had closed his eyes again and seemed asleep.  Thor moved quietly as he took the mower back into the garage, but when he returned he found Loki looking in his direction.  He walked closer and said without thinking, “Loki… are you well?  You look exhausted.  You have done overmuch - ”

Loki flinched slightly, recovered quickly, and looked irritated.  “Merely bored,” he said sharply, sitting up straight.  “The tedium of your life here has quite overcome me.”

It was Thor’s turn to flinch, worry rekindled that Loki might leave him, might return to Asgard.  Loki had promised to stay – but for how long would his quicksilver mind be content with the routine of Blake’s life?  Loki would need occupation of his own – but he hesitated to think what mischief Loki might come up with, left to his own devices.

“Ah, brother, do not frown so.  Are those thunderclouds I see gathering?”

Thor immediately looked up at the clear bright sky, then turned his attention back to Loki, who was smirking. 

He gave him a rueful smile, one which said, “You got me again,” and was ridiculously happy and heartened by the pleased look on Loki’s face, at the enjoyment he got out of Thor’s reaction.

*****

Once inside, Loki settled down on the couch and watched while Thor went to the television set and turned it on.  Thor disappeared into the kitchen for a moment then emerged with a couple of beers that he set down on the coffee table. 

Loki took a sip of beer, and watched his brother covertly.  After lunch, Thor had spent some time outdoors while Loki watched, bemused, as he “raked up leaves” and “cut the grass,” entirely unnecessary efforts, as far as he was concerned.  He did offer to raise up a wind to blow all the leaves in any desired direction, but Thor continued to choose to indulge in manual labor.  He said he needed to do this kind of work; it helped him think.  Loki had not been able to resist commenting on Thor's thinking abilities even as he was bemused by the many mortal peculiarities that had invaded his brother’s mind.

He wasn’t sure of what to make of Thor’s unsettling comment about his appearance.  Of course he was not “exhausted.”  Tired, perhaps, but more sleep would restore the magickal energy he had recently expended.  Two workings of that magnitude so close together were nothing at all.  Though nowhere near as detailed, he had cast far more individual workings in various battles, and had not suffered for it.

Still, Thor would never before have noticed any kind of impact on him the use of his magic entailed, and the thought that Thor was now paying enough attention to even notice that using magic came at a price cheered him.

As long as Thor never thought of Loki as having a weakness.  Loki considered that possibility and wondered if he could devise a working that could disguise the appearance of exhaustion simply by its occurrence.  He would have to give that some thought.

Thor sat down beside him and glanced at the TV where a “news show” was playing.

Loki had observed these Interesting devices in his travels around the world.  They hadn’t even existed when Blake was a child, and when they first appeared, when Blake was almost a man, they only depicted the world in tones of black and grey and white.  Now, their images were bright with color, and though the pictures still did not capture reality, they were closer. 

_Asgard,_ he thought, _had better pay closer attention to these mortals; at the rate they are progressing they will achieve our accomplishments in bare centuries, and might even surpass them – something worth considering, given Asgard’s level of stagnation._

Thor opened a beer and settled down, looking tired, which was ridiculous given the small amount of labor he’d indulged in.  He also looked worried, which kept Loki in an unsettled mood.

On the television, some man sitting behind a desk was announcing various events in mortal concerns, including an upcoming “presidential debate” featuring two mortals named Carter and Reagan.

“So these two men will contend for the kingship of this kingdom?” he asked idly.  “They do not look the part of great leaders.”

“They only compete in matters of the mind, of choices in policy.”

Loki considered this was something he approved of, in theory.  But when Thor went on to explain the concept of voting, he commented, “You mean peasants have the right to choose kings?  This realm has the most peculiar way of selecting its leaders.” 

Thor, looking unsettled, said, “People have the right to make their own choices about their leaders.”  Thor went on to explain they had been governors of states, a concept Loki interpreted to mean they were both Jarls. 

Loki had already known some of this, though this realm was so complex it was extremely difficult to untangle thousands of contradictory customs and beliefs and ways of living and make sense of any of it.  “There are so many kingdoms in this realm, and from what I’ve observed, many of the rulers do so by force,” he pointed out.

“That is true,” Thor said.  “Midgard is a complicated place.”

“I could learn to appreciate the chaos,” Loki said with a smirk.

The man on the television was now talking about a sports team and footage of tall men throwing large balls through hoops filled the screen.

Thor glanced at the screen.  “I was always envious of them, the basketball players.  I used to imagine myself being able to play, finding some magickal cure so it would be like polio had never happened to me.”

His voice grew lower, deeper, his gaze distant.  His shoulders had hunched, and Loki wondered what to do.  Should he touch him?  What should he say? 

“I often dreamed about walking properly,” Thor said.  “Years and years later, and I could still walk easily, freely.  In my dreams.  Now – walking around town – it’s such a joy to be able to do this without thinking.  And how easy it is for me to forget what it was like.  When I had to think about every step I took.  Before,” Thor went on.  “When I was a little kid.  I loved to run.  Loved it.  I ran all over the neighborhood.  Loved to climb - the furniture, trees.  Then everything changed.  I got sick.  And then I couldn’t climb anymore.  Couldn’t run anymore.  Couldn’t do much of anything anymore.  I learned later I almost died.”

He was silent for a moment.  Loki leaned forward, resting one hand on Thor’s forearm without thought, remembering the fear that he and Mother had shared when Heimdall had warned them of Thor’s near-mortal illness.  Mother had proposed going to Midgard and taking him back to Asgard to give to Eir’s healing hands, but Heimdall had warned them Odin’s punishment prevented Thor from leaving Midgard until the spell had been defeated.  Loki had gone to Midgard anyway, prepared to protect Thor in any way he could.

Thor had recovered.  But only partially. 

Now, to think that when he had realized Thor would live but be forever maimed by this mortal illness he had taken joy in the imagination and range of Odin’s punishment.  He’d wanted Thor to suffer for his arrogance.  And Thor had. 

Then, Loki would never have guessed the extent he would go to get his brother back, or how that quest would change him in ways he still did not understand.  Parts of him felt forever altered as well; his own psyche full of surprises.  Chaos, like Thor’s storms, was a force he rode along, following the upheavals and the troughs as if he were always their master.  At the end, sometimes the consequences were unexpected.  Never mind the times he had failed.

Thor began speaking again.  “There are many people who still suffer the consequences.  I got better, but my legs never had the strength they had before.  The muscles that withered – they never recovered. Nothing was ever the same.  The cure happened, yes.  The Salk vaccine.  But people are still trapped in Iron lungs.  Trapped, unable to move, unable even to breathe for themselves, dependent on a machine to keep them alive.”  He clenched his hands so tightly into the arms of his chair that the fabric disintegrated and the wood shattered.

The sky had darkened outside, and a smattering of raindrops fell against the window.  Thor stared for a moment at the damage he caused, curling his fingers up.  Loki grabbed his hand and Thor enclosed it tightly, staring pleadingly up into his eyes.  “I was so arrogant.  I took everything in my life as my right.  My strength.  My ability to easily overcome any obstacles.  To win, always.  Until… Jotunheim.”  Loki’s grip tightened on Thor’s hand, but he didn’t seem to notice.  “Father wanted to teach me a lesson.”  His voice was ragged, his face confused.  “What more did he want me to learn?”

Loki cast around for something to say.  “I think you already know,” Loki said slowly.  “Think of your time in the hospital in Beirut.  You have seen war in all its aspects.”

“I have learned that lesson well.”  The marks of exhaustion were clear on his face, illusion and reality alike.  “I learned about the horrors and desolation of war, about the suffering of innocents.  I have learned the ways of peace.  Rather than seek out war, like the fool I was, I know now how important it is to find every possible way to achieve peace. Why was that not enough?”  Thor looked down at their joined hands, and the flickering light of the television, the light from nearby lamps, highlighted the lines of pain and sorrow on his face.  “What more did he want me to learn?  Did he realize I would find honor in doing the work of healers, the work of women?   Did he realize, by making me disabled, how much I would long to learn how to save others from my fate?  Why did he choose to make me this way?  Were I, as Blake, on Asgard, I would never be valued as a man.” 

Thor abruptly stood, his gaze shadowed.  “Or perhaps that is part of it…”  His voice trailed off.

Loki stood as well and grasped his hand again.  Thor squeezed his fingers.  “I don’t know what he wanted.  If I had achieved it, you would not have needed to go to such lengths to save me.  I don’t want to go back.  Not now.  Maybe he taught me too well.  Being king now?  Now that I remember who I was, what I was capable of?  How will I ever be worthy?”

“Only the All-Father knows the answer, and he sleeps still,” Loki said, helpless in the face of the still-lost expression on Thor’s face.  Silvertongue, he might be called, able to talk his way out of anything, and yet when he needed his words he did not know what to say in the face of Thor’s despair.

“He sleeps still…” Thor repeated, his expression turning darker.  “And that is my fault, too.  The shock of what happened, of what he had to do.  What if he never awakes?”  He looked into Loki’s eyes pleadingly, then frowned at whatever expression was on Loki’s face.  “What is wrong?”

“It is not your fault,” Loki said, biting off the words, pushing away the memory of what had happened in the Vault.  “Mother said it was past his time to Sleep.  You know that.”

“But it has been so long.  I cannot but help feel it is my fault.  I must bear that.”  His shoulders slumped, and Loki looked at him helplessly.  “I am not worthy.  I need to stay here.  I **need** to,” Thor said fiercely.  “Not just for Father – but for my adoptive father, as well.  I have to understand – to truly understand – what Father wanted me to learn.  Would that I could ask him.” 

Thor’s voice trailed off, his face a picture of misery.  “I just need time to think.”  He gave a watery chuckle.  “That is, if you think me capable of such.”

Loki laughed and clapped Thor on the shoulder.  “Oaf,” he said with a smile.  “But my thought is, thinking is precisely what the All-Father wished you to learn.” 

“Then I have more work to do.”  Some raucous show with people arguing in a living room was on the television now.  Thor got up and turned it off.  “Time for dinner.”  He headed for the kitchen, then stopped.  “Brother… why don’t you call our father ‘Father’?”

Loki stood still a second, then forced himself to relax.  “I am thinking of him as your King in this regard, not as our father.”

Thor nodded, but he looked unconvinced.  He turned and headed toward the kitchen.

Loki didn’t follow.  He stood in the entry to the dining room, listening as Thor began pulling out pans and knives and opening the refrigerator, thoughts veering chaotically through his mind.  _What will Mother think, when she finds out Thor does not want to return?  What will his friends think, when they find out Thor has given up the ways of war?_

_Mother will know already,_ he decided.  _Heimdall would have told her.  But no one else knew yet._

_What now?_

For a moment it was as if he were back in the Vault, centuries ago, with Fa- with the AllFather telling them both _you were born to be Kings._   For a moment he imagined himself the elder, Thor the younger; he the favored, Thor not. 

A foolish fantasy.  He was not Odin’s blood.  Instead he had proved to be a useless pawn, up until the point the All-Father had gone into the Sleep.

He thanked the Norns that Odin’s plans had come to naught.   With two other sons, Laufey never would have needed a useless runt. What complex plot had Odin imagined that could ever have resulted in Loki on Jotunheim’s throne?

Then it seemed as if he were back in his chambers, leading the Jotnar through magickal means into the Vault to spoil Thor’s coronation.  The chaos he had caused.  The death of the guards.  The disaster on Jotunheim.

Everything had gone wrong, from the very first moment.  Why had he not realized it in time?

He had only ever wanted to be Thor’s equal – yet in all his plans, all his imaginings, he had never been prepared for what had actually happened.

He could hear Thor opening and closing drawers in the kitchen.  Should he stay here for awhile?  A few days?  A few years?  He would need to go back to Asgard some time.  Both Alfheim and Vanaheim would be sending ambassadors to the Althing in a year or two.  There was the Grand Festival a few years after that.  There were always petitioners.  He could not shirk his duties and leave all to Mother, not without losing the credibility and respect he had so painfully gained.  But without Thor by his side – the promise of the power of the throne he had longed for now seemed bereft of interest to him.

He looked down, realized he was rubbing left hand.  He clenched his right fist, dropped it to his side.

Ignoring the unease that still plagued him, he put an amused smile on his face and joined Thor in the kitchen in order to provide commentary on Thor’s efforts there.

*****

On the morning of the third day the phone rang again.  Blake picked it up, already smiling, but the expression froze on his face and he went pale.  Loki listened, concerned, as Thor asked a multitude of questions which involved complex Midgardian medical terms, thanked the caller, and hung up.  He looked at Loki, his expression grim.

“My father – he’s been in an accident.  He fell down a flight of stairs.  I must go to him.”  He looked around frantically, hand outstretched seemingly without his conscious thought, and Mjolnir leapt to it.  He looked at Loki, lightning in his eyes.

“Brother.  How far away resides Blake’s father?”  Loki set a hand on Thor’s forearm, disturbed by the look of near panic on Thor’s face. 

“ ** _My_** father – “ Thor said, glancing down at Mjolnir, back at Loki.  “About 100 miles.”

“Is he sore injured?”

Thor finally seemed to focus.  “He has injured a leg.  Possibly he is harmed inside.”  He gripped Mjolnir’s handle more tightly.  “We need to go.  NOW.” 

Loki noticed with some pleasure and some impatience Thor’s automatic assumption he’d accompany him to this meeting with someone unknown to him, just as he had assumed Loki would follow him wherever he went these past two days.  Just like on Asgard.  Except – the changes in Thor were now multiplying.  His assumption that Loki would go with him now seemed more like Thor was leaning on him for help than simply assuming that of course Loki would follow him as everyone would, because of course no one would ever think twice about dropping whatever they were doing to follow Thor on whatever whim had seized him. 

“We can’t just show up minutes from now,” Loki pointed out.  “Whoever called you will wonder at your speed.”

Thor’s face dropped.  “No.  Of course.  You’re right.”

Words he ordinarily would have delighted in hearing, but he had to set them aside to savor later.  He pressed on.  “We will take Cadillac Eldorado.  How long will that vehicle take to transport us?”

“Maybe two hours, depending on traffic.”

“Then let us go.”

*****

After Thor had driven Cadillac Eldorado out onto the streets and onto the “thruway”, he had withdrawn into his own thoughts, seemingly unaware of the occasional glances Loki cast him.  Not wanting to be caught looking so concerned, Loki deliberately turned his attention to their surroundings.  Masses of trees, orange leaves still clinging to partially bare branches, crowded both sides of the road.  Green signs appeared occasionally, directing drivers to concrete pathways branching to roads leading to other mortal towns and villages.

Thor handled the vehicle expertly, usually driving swiftly on the leftmost lane of the grey pavement, occasionally weaving to the right and then back to the left to pass other vehicles moving too slowly for his taste.  Most of the other vehicles were on four wheels, some on two, with helmeted riders.  Larger lumbering boxlike vehicles mostly stayed to the right. 

Loki considered the motorcycles and decided he’d like to try riding one of those.  He didn’t expect they would be as pleasurable as riding a horse, but they were open to the elements, unlike the claustrophobic confines of this vehicle. 

“I looked up to Dad.  I always did.  As a kid.  I wanted to be just like him when I grew up.”  After driving a few miles, Thor suddenly broke his silence and started talking about his mortal father.  “He was a mighty war hero.   A decorated veteran.  Career military.  Purple Heart.”  Whatever that meant, but Loki did not ask for an explanation. 

This talk unsettled him, and he kept silence, giving Thor attentive looks while Thor rambled on about random memories of his ‘father,’ interspersed with long periods of silence.  Thor’s mind wasn’t quiet, though; Loki could see thoughts flitting across his face like wind-driven clouds moving swiftly across the sky. 

“He never talked about the battles he’d been in,” Thor said, after another silence of several minutes.  “But I know he wanted me to follow in his footsteps.  Join the army.  Be a man, like they say.”  He made an odd sound, part ironic, part indulgent, and Loki wondered anew at the breadth of feeling Thor was apparently capable of.   “And then – I couldn’t.  Mom, she…  they both grieved when I fell ill.  When I recovered, Mom was always supportive.  She was maybe a bit too protective.  I still wanted to fight my own battles.  Against the bullies.”  A memory struck him and he glanced at Loki.  “You know.  You were there, that one time.”

Loki agreed, not allowing one glimmer of his thoughts to alter his expression, remembering the time he had planned to watch in glee as a pack of bullies taunted Blake, until without even thinking he had intervened and saved him. 

“I wish I could talk to him – share my own deeds of war with him.  I wish we could have that,” Thor said, and the peculiar sorrow which crossed his face reminded Loki of the many ironies of his situation.  Glancing at Loki, he said, “I know I cannot.  I share this with him but can never speak of it.  He is my father and I can never tell him what I truly am.”

Loki shifted uncomfortably, mind racing, for an instant back in the Vault standing over Odin’s collapsed body; then for an instant back on Jotunheim, his task there done, their power restored as part of the terms of the peace treaty.  How he had wished, when he had first arrived, to return quickly home and shed the blue skin he had been living in for all the days he had spent there, a humiliating necessity due to his use of the Casket of Ancient Winters. 

Then time had passed and, strangely, he had felt almost comfortable there, the sight of his skin no longer shocking, the song of the Casket becoming a part of him…

**No**.  He never had a place there.  Abandoned, discarded like so much trash.  The memory of his last conversation with Laufey was vivid in his mind.  His sire had loomed over him, studying him carefully.  His shock at Laufey’s words: _“Do you mock me by taking my lines?”_

He had lied.  Of course, he had lied.  No one was **_ever_** going to learn the truth, least of all any of the Jötnar.  

Least of all, his sire.

Thor was still looking at him, not at the road.  Loki cast about for something to say.  “Was he always a good father to you?  You have said he did not always approve of you.  And not just because of your ailment.”

Thor’s brow furrowed.  “I disappoint him.  He wanted a son, not a….”  His voice trailed off and sorrow entered his eyes.

If this had been Asgard, before, Loki would have had many well-chosen words to say, pretty elaborate phrasings with the blade of envy beneath.  If this had been Asgard, before everything that had happened, he would have been pleased by the dismay on Thor’s face, at the thought that Thor could ever disappoint Odin.

But he did not know this human, this Samuel Blake, and the thought that this man had been disappointed in Thor as his son filled him with hot anger.

Thor didn’t continue, and after a moment Loki, increasingly discomfited by Thor’s somber mood, smiled brightly and pointed out the car ahead of them.  “Why does that vehicle have the same name as yours?  Is your ‘Cadillac Eldorado’ not worthy of a unique name?” 

Thor glanced at him and laughed.  “You!” he said, looking back at the road.  “Cadillac is the name of the company that makes them and Eldorado is the type of car it is.”

“Do not mortals name their own cars?” He kept the same bright quizzical look on his face.  “Do they not have pride in individual possession?”

“Oh, they definitely do.”  Thor glanced at him and shook his head, smiling.  “And yes, some people name their cars.  It’s more common with boats, though.”

“Mortals are so odd…”  Loki managed to keep that look of perplexity on his face until Thor burst out laughing, and he did too.

“Don’t think you can fool me,” Thor said, and Loki smiled inwardly.  “You’ve been visiting earth for decades now.  You know a lot more than you let on.”

Loki shrugged.  “Mortal tastes and fashions shift so rapidly.  One blink and everything is different.  You cannot expect me to keep up with something that will change the next moment.”

“Then you’ve changed if you no longer like chaos,” Thor said, but he stopped smiling.  “And things do change.  In an instant.”

The look of sorrow had returned to Thor’s face, and though Loki tried to amuse him with tales of the shenanigans Volstagg’s children recently had gotten into, Thor’s smiles for the next half hour were less frequent and more strained.  Loki again was left with the feeling of strangeness.  Because Thor had changed in ways he hadn’t expected, and for once none of the options he considered seemed to lead anywhere he wanted to go.

*****

Thor kept his attention focused on the road ahead of him.  Only a few more miles to go.  Loki was still talking, trying to amuse him, but Thor’s thoughts and emotions veered chaotically from a depth of tenderness for his brother that had long lain beneath the surface of his mind to surges of panic about the health of his human father, to worry about Father’s long Sleep, to sudden flashes of memories, bits and pieces and shards, each carrying a massive weight of associations. 

Young Loki, centuries ago, throwing dozens of knives in rapid succession, spelling out Thor’s name in runes on the wall of their history tutor’s hall. 

Himself, his human mother at his side as he spelled out his name in laborious print as she smiled indulgently at him.

Frigga, smiling indulgently at him as he, proud as he could be, carried his practice sword into combat with a magicked dummy.

His first patient, Mrs. Stevens, showing up at his office with a rash from poison ivy.

He , Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three battling a chimera on Vanaheim, Hogun suffering serious injury from its talons requiring long days spent in Eir’s care.

Speaking with the parents of a seven-year-old child who had died of injuries from a fall despite Blake’s best efforts to save him.

Loki as a tiny child toddling alongside Mother, he so very much taller, coming all the way up to Mother’s waist.  Loki with one hand clutching the material of Mother’s cloth-of-gold skirt, his bright green eyes filled with curiosity and plans – plans he later executed by clambering up the statue of their great-grandfather Búrison, the better to reach the highest window in the statuary hall. 

Staring at patients in hospital beds; the endless hours of internship when sleep seemed a distant memory; always one more patient to see.

Days of endless battle blood and gore crowding his field of vision.  Sword, then hammer, always one more enemy to kill.

Memories crowded in, flashed, vanished again.  The strangeness of it all was overwhelming.  He rubbed one hand against his chin.  The morning’s smoothness had given way to the beginnings of stubble.  He rubbed his chin again, remembering the texture of his beard. 

The way his face appeared in the mirror, a stranger no matter whether he saw Thor or he saw Blake. 

The car kept hurtling forward.  He steered and braked without thinking.  Odin and Samuel vied for his thoughts:  one father injured; one father comatose, perhaps never to wake from the Sleep. 

Untethered, unmoored, he drove on, trying to smile at Loki’s amusing stories, so like the jests Loki had been given to when they were younger.  The words barely penetrated his mind, but the expression on Loki’s face did.  He was smiling brightly, an expression that almost succeeded in hiding the concern and fear lurking beneath the surface of his eyes.

Feelings of helplessness drowned him.  All he could do was keep driving.


	6. Chapter 6

Loki followed as Thor strode through brightly lit hospital hallways.  Intense light bathed everything with an unpleasant tinge, and the place smelled acrid and harsh.  People bustled everywhere, many of the women wearing white.  The healers were obvious by their purposeful movements; many of the others looked haggard and shocked. 

It didn’t take long for Thor to get the information he required, and shortly after they were inside a plain-walled small room, occupied by a man in a bed edged on all side by metal bars.  Loki took in the rest of the room in one glance.  It was utilitarian, its only other furnishings a wheeled table-tray, a small television high on a stand, and a telephone attached to a wall.  One small window let in some natural light; a respite against the artificial illumination.

Loki turned all his attention on the man.

Samuel Blake.  Thor’s mortal adoptive father.

His hair was an iron grey, slightly mussed against the plain white pillow.  He had one leg encased in a hard white substance.  The back of his bed was semi-upright. 

His fierce shaggy eyebrows punctuated a face worn with pain and age.  Loki had seen him before, when Donald Blake had still been a mortal child, when he had assumed the man and woman caring for Thor were servants chosen by Odin rather than mortals who had chosen a foundling for their own son.  Had Odin left this all to chance, or had he at least had a care for his son’s safety and chosen these mortals specifically to be his caregivers?  Another question, among many, that would stay unanswered as long as Odin lay in his Sleep.

He’d paid no attention to Samuel then.

Now he burned with curiosity to find out what manner of man he was that he could tie Thor to this Realm with simply the bonds of false family. 

He pushed aside a quick flash of himself as a small child, looking up into Odin’s eyes. 

Thor gave him a quick introduction and began talking exclusively with his father.  Loki listened to the details about the accident, Samuel grumbling that he had been “stupid” to fall like that.  They began discussing his medical care, interrupted once by a visit from a nurse.  Other mortals were mentioned, a friend who Samuel had called after his fall, the telephone being fortunately close to hand near where he’d fallen.  Relatives who had been informed.  Friends and relatives who needed to be informed.

After Thor had satisfied himself as to his adoptive father’s medical care, Samuel gave Loki a hard stare.  “You don’t sound Norwegian.”

“I’ve lived many places during my lifetime,” Loki lied smoothly.

“Hmm.  Well.  I’d like to speak to my son alone.  If you don’t mind.”  His tone was polite with just the tiniest edge of suspicion and disapproval. 

Loki bristled at the tone while favoring Samuel with a pleasant smile.

“Certainly, sir,” Loki said, and sent an illusion of himself walking out the door, while he stayed, invisible, inside the room standing against the green pastel-painted wall.

*****

Thor settled in a seat by his father’s side.  Samuel Blake smiled.  “Finally back from gallivanting around the world?” 

Thor began chatting about Norway while he helped his father change position, and offered him a glass of water.  While Samuel drank, Thor looked down at the man who had raised him, and felt a curious duality.  Part of him was filled with the desire for approval from his father and all the work he’d done in hopes of winning his praise.  When he was young – so young he barely remembered – it had been so simple.  His father had been like the sun he followed that lit up his days.  Then the long darkness of his illness, the permanent consequences, the learning to walk again, the feeling that his legs were no longer truly his, the years of hard work and rehabilitation.

He thought of his own father, his biological father.  He thought of Odin All-Father, the most powerful being in the Nine Realms, and how he had lived comfortably knowing his father approved of the path he was taking.

Until, arrogant, he had presumed to know more than he truly did.  Only now did he understand how ignorant he truly was.  And now he knew what a failure as a son he had been.

Samuel Blake was a warrior, like Odin; firm in his beliefs.  He owed him love and a great debt, just as he owed Odin. 

How complicated these repayments truly were.

“What was it like in Beirut?” Samuel asked.

“Hard.  The wounded – so many of them died, or were permanently maimed or blinded.” 

“It was war,” Samuel said, and he had that perfect understanding in his eyes, all the things he had never talked about just beneath the surface, letting the deeds which led to his Purple Heart speak for him.

“Yes,” he said, “It was war.”  And felt himself sickened at the memories that crowded in.  His hand clenched his cane, and Mjolnir thrummed in response, and he remembered her quick action when he threw her, slaying dozens of Jötnar with one hurl of his weapon. 

“I never thought I’d see you on the battlefield,” Samuel said with a shake of his head.  “And yet there you were, volunteering in something that wasn’t even your fight.”

“I needed to do it.  I’m a doctor, and I owed more to the world than staying in a comfortable practice in Kingston.”

Samuel nodded approvingly.  “The medics were every bit as courageous as the soldiers.  My best friend Clark would have died from a gutshot if the medics hadn’t been there.”  He took in a deep breath, a slight trace of pain crossing his face.  Thor bent closer, worried, and a stubborn looked settled on Samuel’s craggy features.  “How was Norway?”

“Beautiful.”  Thor settled back in his chair.  “The mountains, the lakes, the scenery – amazing.  It makes the Catskills look like foothills.”

“Why’d you decide to go there?”

“I got a travel brochure in the mail.” 

“So, just on impulse?”

“I was at loose ends.  I had a lot of different options to pursue, but I needed a vacation.  Somewhere far away from war zones.  I felt like doing something different.”  Thor remembered the utter sense of compulsion to go there; a compulsion he now knew was the spell Loki had placed on that innocent envelope in his mailbox.

“I’ve never once heard you talk about ever wanting to visit there,” Samuel persisted.

“Well,” Thor said, feeling his way.  “We haven’t talked about a lot of things in recent years.”

“No.”  Samuel’s eyes narrowed, and Thor kept his face expressionless against the sinking feeling that he had ventured out on territory he had not planned to explore, the knowledge that he had opened a door that, years before, the two of them had closed in bitter silence.

“Your… friend.” 

Thor stiffened at the slight pause between the words, the obvious emphasis on the latter word.

“Yes?” he asked.

Samuel drew in a deep breath, let it out again.  “Why did you bring him here?”

“I told you – we met in Beirut and again in Norway and I invited him to stay with me.”

“But why bring him _here?_   To my hospital room?”  His eyes turned darker, fiery.  “I hoped you’d gotten this out of your system.  I never expected – “

“What?” Thor asked, and it was himself as Thor and himself as Blake who went on.  “Go on.  Say it.”

“I thought it was just a phase,” Samuel temporized

Thor barked a laugh.  “It was never ‘just a phase.’  This is who I am.”

“You don’t have to flaunt it in my face.  Bringing that fairy here – “

“Stop right now, dad.  Just stop it.”  _Another father who thinks I’m unworthy.  Maybe I’m not a worthy son.  Not here.  Not in Asgard._ Electric anger ran through Thor’s nerves.  Every muscle tensed in readiness to battle an enemy. 

_No.  This is wrong. **He** is wrong.  _

He forced himself to tamp his anger down.  Could feel his love for his father, despite everything.   A big part of him yearned to somehow make the other man understand, to reopen that door, to find different words.  Would that he possessed Loki’s cleverness with words!  He knew deeds, he knew battle, whether with sword or hammer or scalpel and suture.  He knew the workings of bodies in death and in life.

He did not know the words of subtlety and persuasion.

He knew the truth, and it would be enough.

“I raised you better than this,” Samuel said.

“You raised me,” Thor said, “to be true to what I believe in.  To be true to who I am.  And that’s what I’m doing.”  He turned and took a step to go.

“Don,” Samuel said, and Thor paused.  “Son,” Samuel said, and Thor turned back to level a glare at him.  “I’ve tried to turn a blind eye,” Samuel said.  “To be true to what **_I_** believe in.”

“Dad,” Thor said.  “I always wanted to make you proud.  But I could never be the man you were.  As a child I thought getting ill was my fault.  That’s why I became a doctor.  And now I understand what happened to me, and it wasn’t my fault.  And who I am – Dad, I’ve always been gay.  That’s just the way it is.  If you can’t accept that – ” he started to turn away, “then we have nothing to say to each other.”

He took one more step.  Samuel said, “Stop.”

Thor faced his father again.  He stood silent, waiting.  Samuel took a deep breath, gritted his teeth. 

In his father’s eyes Thor saw something he hadn’t seen for years.  He remembered, as a child, before he’d gotten sick, playing baseball on Saturdays with the other boys.  He’d seen that look on his father’s face the first time he’d hit a home run.

Samuel kept a steady gaze on him.  “You’ve got a lot of guts, son.  I admire that.  There were a couple of fags in my unit in the army.  They had guts too.”

Thor’s fist tightened at the ergi insult.  He waited a moment for him to go on.

“I don’t understand it,” Samuel said.  “So let’s not talk about it again.”

So they were closing the door again, shutting off more words before they could be said.  Thor felt a deep disappointment warring with a sense of relief that his father had not turned him out, that he was not outcast again.

“All right,” Thor said finally.  “But don’t _EVER_ insult my friend again.  Not if you still consider me your son.” 

Samuel’s eyes widened.  He nodded, but there was a trace of anger left in his eyes.  Resigned to a longer battle, Thor said, “I’ll come visit you tomorrow.”

He walked out of the room, then paused in the middle of the corridor.  He looked to the right and left for Loki, then heard his voice whispered behind his back.

When he turned Loki was standing behind him, his eyes incandescent with rage.

Thor’s gut clenched and he prepared for another battle.  “You were there all along.”

“What did you expect?” Loki sneered, face twisted in anger.

People were walking past them, hurrying to other destinations in the hospital.  Thor moved back to Loki’s position at the corridor wall.  He faced Loki, taking hold of his arm.

Loki broke his grip and stepped back, anger radiating from him.  “Why _did_ you bring me here?”  His voice was fire under ice; a cold control on the verge of breaking and erupting into flame.  “So your insignificant fool of a mortal father could insult me?”

Thor sucked in a breath, hand clenching around the head of his cane.  Mjolnir hummed uneasily beneath his grip, sensing his agitation.  Loki tilted his head back and put on the most arrogant look he was capable of, the one always calculated to send Thor into a seething rage.

Thor held on hard to his temper.  “I didn’t think.”

Loki barked a harsh laugh.  “You never do.”

“I’m trying, though.”  Thor tried to keep his voice calm, tried to thread apology into those simple words.  He was still deeply unsettled from the conversation with his father, but he knew he had to tread carefully lest he lose Loki.

Loki gave him a hard stare.  “Come with me now, to Asgard.” 

Thor held his gaze.  “I can’t.  Not now.”  He spoke evenly even as he braced himself, certain the ground would fall from beneath his feet.

Loki made a harsh furious sound.  “Why are you wasting your time here?  To have your false father call you **_unworthy_** to your face? To call me **_ergi?  Donald?_**   Shall I leave you here, among your mortal friends?  Tell all Asgard you no longer care for their company?”

A sick feeling twisted in Thor’s stomach at even thinking of Loki abandoning him.  “I need to stay here.  I’m not going to abandon him.  He’s wrong.  I told him he was wrong.  But he’s my father.  I’m not going to just walk away.  I’ll talk to him again.  Make him understand.  This is hard for him, against his beliefs.  But he’s wrong.”

“Would you say the same to Odin?  Would you tell him, **_‘Loki made me argr and I loved it and I gave myself to many Midgardian men as well_ ’**.”

Thor, blushed, hesitated for a second, then went bravely on.  “Yes.  Though – not quite in those words.”

Loki laughed suddenly.  “I don’t believe you.  Standing in front of him – speaking those words – you haven’t the courage.”

Thor grew angrier, fought it back.  “I’ll prove it to you.  When," he stumbled over the word, caught his breath, shoved back the thought that Father might never awaken, and continued, "we see Father again I will do just that.”

Loki stared at him, then a malicious smile twisted his lips.  “I am anticipating the pleasure of watching you do **_just that_**.”

“You’re imagining it right now – I can tell.”  Thor had often seen that very look in Loki’s eyes, always a certain portent some dark mischief would shortly follow. 

Loki smiled with pleased anticipation.  “I could show you the whole illusion, like one of your movies.”  He made a gesture, as if to cast the illusion, and Thor grabbed his wrist.

“Let’s leave.  Let’s talk about this someplace else.”  Some of the people in the hallway with them had slowed as they passed and Thor was aware of their stares.

Loki cast a glance around them.  A flame-haired woman in an arm cast had stopped to stare at them.  She met his direct gaze, then ducked her head and walked away.  “Oh yes.”  Loki turned his gaze back to Thor. “Because the mighty Thor was always so worried about what other people thought.” 

“That was the problem.  Was it not?” Thor said, remembering all the things Loki had done to protect them from Heimdall’s gaze; from the shame that would have come if any had found out what they did in secret.

Loki paused and gave him a searching look.  For a long moment they stared at each other.  Then Loki’s expression shifted again, and he drew in a breath to speak.

“Let’s leave,” Thor put in before Loki could say a word.  He started to turn toward the hallway that led to the exit.

A wide toothy grin flashed on Loki’s face.  “Yes.  Let’s.”

He grabbed Thor’s wrist, and the world disappeared into a rush of sound and wind and color and then reintegrated before Thor could quite realize what had happened.


	7. Chapter 7

Adrenaline racing through him, heart pounding, Thor found himself standing on uneven ground.   The fresh scent of earth and autumn filled his nostrils.  A gentle breeze shivered through the few leaves remaining on the trees, sending some drifting randomly toward the ground.  Automatically taking a battle stance, he rapidly surveyed his surroundings, and instantly recognized that place in the Catskills he had visited all those years ago.  Then, it had been summer and the trees had been green and thick with leaves.  Though now it was autumn and half-bare branches stretched toward the sky, the place was clearly the same.

“You brought me to – ”

“The place where I had you go on your knees to me, yes.”  Loki’s face was a blend of pride and anger and some dark unease beneath.  His hand was still tight on Thor’s wrist, fingernails digging into his flesh.

Thor made no attempt to free himself.  They traded hard stares for a moment, Thor waiting for Loki to speak.  Loki was looking up at him.  Memories flooded his mind:  a Saturday trip to the Catskills for a simple hike in the woods.  He’d been working hard on strengthening his legs, enjoying the sun, the fresh air, the feeling of being so far away from work and worries.  The walk along the hiking trail had been pleasurable for its challenges.  He’d taken pride in his ability to walk further and with more ease every time he attempted this, his cane helping him maintain balance over the uneven ground.

The walk back out – he’d forgotten what had happened until this very moment.  He remembered now he’d somehow fallen asleep.  He hadn’t even remembered sitting down, and yet he’d awakened leaning against a rock in a meadow near the trailside, haunted by disturbing dreams and the sense of having met someone on the trail, with no memory of any details.

Now, memories returned, flooded into his mind.  The diverging trails when there should have been only one.   Taking the one to the left, even though something inside him had insisted it was the wrong way.

Thor stared down into Loki’s eyes and remembered walking along that mysterious path, following a tall black-haired oddly-clad stranger leading him deep in the woods into a small clearing, filled with what Thor now recognized were magickal energies.  There they had halted, surrounded by silence and fog.

He looked into Loki’s face now, hard and set and filled with anger, and remembered the stranger he had seen then.

The stranger he somehow knew.

His ghostlike face had been as pale as snow, his intense eyes full of secrets, his body haloed by an eldritch aura of green and gold light.

The same aura that was even now fading away, the remnants of the spell that had transported them here.  The green light of magic surrounding his brother broke apart into bright rapid sparks, their power fueled by the rage still present in his brother’s eyes. 

He remembered now.  The stranger’s words.  Loki’s words.  Going to his knees before him.  Opening his mouth.  Wanting this man’s cock.  _Needing_ it, as much as he had needed anything in his life.  More.

“I remember – then I forgot,” he said in a deep murmur.  Remembered the feeling of the rising wind, the lightning in the skies, the thunder sounding distantly only to fade away again.  “I could feel your magic around me for an instant.   I knew I had known you before – but I couldn’t remember anything.”

“Odin’s spell was stronger than my working,” Loki said bitterly.  “So cleverly done.  A knot that could not be untied.”

“But you **_did_** ,” Thor said, desperate to reach past the darkness of Loki’s expression.  “Just not then.”  He remembered the feeling of the wind caressing his body, the surface tingle of electricity racing along his skin seeking and failing to penetrate his flesh, failing to find his soul and release his memories.  The magickal energies retreating, vanishing into nothing.  “You never gave up,” he whispered, awed. 

Rage faded from Loki’s eyes.  Thor liked even less the expression that replaced it.  Some hint of remorse, some hint of despair, flashed and vanished in a second.  Loki’s hands curled tightly.   His attempt at a smile was ghastly.

“Why have you brought me here?  Now?”

He watched, confused, when Loki’s gaze darkened to cruelty.  A cynical smile twisted Loki’s lips.  His eyes brightened again, and he gave Thor a false smile.  “So you remember.  Everything.”

“I do,” he insisted. 

Loki stalked around him, then pressed himself to Thor’s back.  Thor shuddered, skin prickling, at the feel of Loki’s cock, half-hard, pressed to his ass.  Loki whispered, cool breath brushing against Thor’s neck, his voice dark and insinuating.  “I brought you here then because I wanted to make you ergi.  I wanted to make you kneel.”

Shame and anger flooded him at the word, the images, the implications.  Made ergi, made lesser, unmanned.  He struggled against the feelings warring in his mind.  _This is who I am_.  _This is who Donald has been, these past years._ Flashes of images of all the strangers he’d met and been fucked by in NYC bathhouses shot through his mind.

“I wanted you to take my cock in your mouth.  I wanted you to know my taste, as I know well yours.”  Loki’s words struck lightning across his skin.  His groin tightened at the memory of his lips on Loki’s cock, the feel of its thick presence in his mouth, its taste and smell, its smooth skin covering hardness.  Lust, hot and burning, had filled him then, a sudden intense desire for this familiar stranger.  That lust flared anew. 

Memories resurfaced in sharp vivid detail.  Eight mortal years ago, he’d gone on his knees before this stranger he somehow know, the man with the black hair and green eyes who had haunted his dreams all his mortal life.

Loki.  His brother.  He was taller now, able to look down into his brother’s eyes, but then – Loki had been taller than Blake, was taller than he was now in his illusioned mortal body.  In memory, he marveled at the unaccustomed angle.  He’d looked up into that stranger’s glittering eyes and _wanted_.  He’d known this was dangerous, known he was a fool to follow someone he didn’t know down an unfamiliar path with no one else around them.  He’d never be able to escape, unable to do more than try to stumble away should the situation turn dangerous.  He’d gone anyway, compelled by the undercurrents in his mind that showed him in dreams rare glimpses of something beyond Blake’s waking life, images that receded into darkness when sleep deserted him.

How this stranger’s lascivious whispers of an event Blake had never remembered had ignited hot desire.  Loki’s lewd description of how they’d gone into the woods near the Vanaheim capital and admitted their desires had equally baffled him and inflamed him.  Thor remembered that day, so many centuries ago, very well.  Loki had, for the first time, gone on his knees before him.

Then, Loki’s description had not aroused his memories.  But it had aroused his lust.  Even then, thinking this man mad, he had willingly gone to his knees.

Threads of those memories screaming the truth had lain buried beneath the surface of his bespelled amnesia:  he knew this man.  They’d done this thing before.  But not like this.  Not with him on his knees, Loki’s cock in his mouth.  Always, Loki on his knees. 

Loki moved to face him again.  His face was hard and set.  “I wanted to shame you,” Loki said challengingly, and Thor could see it then, could understand, as the flashes of a thousand times before him when Loki had gone to his knees before him, had offered his mouth or his ass.  And had asked for the same in return.

“I wanted,” Loki said in a low intense whisper, “I wanted to look down on you, see you taking me in your mouth.  I imagined how you would feel when you remembered all, and remembered what I had done to you.  What you would NEVER allow me to do to you.” 

It struck Thor in the gut, the knowledge of his cowardice, and the hot shame flooding him was due to none of what Loki intended.  His body and then his soul knew the truth of it.  Loki had given him what he had long desired and never dared admit to anyone but himself.  In secret dreams, alone in the darkness and stillness of his bedchamber, hand jerking his own cock, he had allowed himself to indulge in the fantasized desires that he had sworn he would never speak of.  Himself, the taken.  Himself, the penetrated.

Now, part of him grieved that he had not been in his right mind to enjoy what he had been given when Loki had come to him, a magickal stranger.  But he was now all too aware the man he had been would never have taken the subordinate position. 

“It is no shame,” he insisted.  “You never did ought that I did not desire myself.”

Loki’s mouth twisted in anger.  Thor reached out for his hands, which Loki pulled away.  “You did not say so THEN!  You always refused me!  You stood now and let your mortal father call me ergi!”

“I told him if he said such again I would no longer be his son.”

“He said nothing to you in return!”

“He knows that I mean it.”

Loki inhaled sharply.  “And when you tell Odin all, and he calls you ergi and tells you none such may rule, what then?”

“Then I am never to be king.”  Seeing the doubt in Loki’s eyes, he went on.  “Father sent me to earth to learn many things,” he said insistently, wanting more than ever to have Loki’s gift with words, to make him believe.  “I have learned this lesson well.  I thought of myself and not of you.  I will do whatever you desire now, a thousand times over, however you want it.  You know that.  Have I not done these things now, knowing who I am?   You always have only to ask.”

Loki took a step back, up the rise.  Thor followed after.  “I mean it,” he said, reaching out grasp Loki’s hands.  This time, Loki did not pull away, but stood as still as if he had been carved from stone, his face nearly without expression. From this position Loki was looking down at him.  It had been like this before, Thor remembered, thinking of how Loki dominated him when he had no memory of being other than Donald Blake.  He remembered looking up at him, when Loki had come and his cock had slipped from Donald’s mouth.  The fleeting ecstatic expression, the strangeness of his glance at Blake after.  How Loki had towered over him; how he lifted him as if he weighed nothing.  Thor was the stronger now, but it was hard to truly feel it, so sudden were the rush of memories.  “I do not lie.  You know that.”

Loki’s grip tightened on his hands.

“Tell me what you want,” Thor asked.  “Please.”

Loki pulled his hands away and stalked a few paces off, then turned back and looked down, his expression remote.  A breeze blew up and Thor felt it, the power in him calling to the air, responding to his agitation.  Clouds began drifting closer overhead, darkening with rain.  The breeze lifted the ends of Loki’s hair and rustled through his own long hair.  A few raindrops spattered and the light dimmed around them.

“What do you want?” Thor asked again.

“Answer this.  You have two fathers,” Loki said, and his shadowed face looked feral.  “Which is your real one?”

“They both are,” Thor said without an instant’s hesitation.  Loki’s face twisted with skepticism and something like fear, and Thor, frustrated, burst out, “Why does that, of **_all_** things, matter to you?”

“’ ** _They both are’_**?”  Loki shook his head.  “Your fathers?  You truly believe that?”  Loki huffed a breath and began pacing back and forth as if caught in an invisible cage.

“I will not abandon Asgard forever, if it is that you fear,” Thor ventured, utterly perplexed.  “I told you I would return.  15, 20 years, even 30 – it is nothing.  You have been away longer on your studies and quests.” 

Loki barked a harsh laugh, then turned his back.  Thor took a step closer, saddened by his defensive posture.

“What if you found out your father was a monster?” came the incomprehensible whisper.

“I…” Thor’s mind went blank as he tried and failed to think of some possible reason for Loki’s question.  “…take not your meaning.  Dad is stubborn and maybe he’ll never approve of me, but he is not a monster.”  Loki huffed and gave him a despairing look.  Thor tried again, “Or is it your anger against Father for the danger he put me in by his spell?”

Another laugh, more like a sob.  “Odin All-Father is a **_liar_**.”

Thor was speechless with rage for one second.  “How can you say such of our father?”

Loki made a strangled noise, and Thor, about to make an angry outburst, paused, stunned by the pain on Loki’s face.

“I don’t understand,” Thor said.  “What do you mean, our father is a monster?  What has Father done in my absence?  I thought he fell into the Sleep shortly after – ”

“I did not say **_your_** father was a monster.”

Thor went from anger to sheer bafflement, and hit on the one thing that puzzled him the most.  “Why don’t you call him father?” Thor repeated his question from earlier, and Loki whirled upon him with such pain and rage on his face that Thor took a step back.

**“BECAUSE HE IS NOT!”**   Loki slammed his fist against a nearby tree, which cracked, tore in half, and toppled with a resounding crash.

Thor stood in frozen silence, staring at his brother, wondering if he had lost his mind.

Loki’s expression fractured, and for an instant he appeared on the verge of tears, before his face went utterly blank, then shifted to a bitter smile.  “You did not see what happened on Jotunheim.”

“What do you mean?”  Loki’s words hit Thor like a gut-punch, and he was again flooded with guilt for his actions, horror at the deaths he had caused.  He searched his memory, but there was nothing there that could possibly explain Loki’s insane enraged statement.  A deep foreboding filled him, even beyond the painful grasp of those memories.  He took a step forward, reaching out.  Loki took a step back.  “What happened on Jotunheim?”

“I learned a truth that had been withheld from me.  From you as well, it appears.”  Loki barked a short, mad laugh.

“ ** _What_** truth?” Thor demanded, restraining the urge to grab Loki and shake him until he ceased his evasions.  “If Odin is not your father….  Who is?”

“Laufey.”

Thor wanted to laugh.  But the devastated, broken look in Loki’s eyes halted that response, and instead he said, voice gone rough, “Tell me.”

Loki laughed again at those words, and a gut deep worry gripped Thor at the mad light glittering in Loki’s eyes.  “ _Tell me_ ,” he repeated.  “ ** _Tell me_** _._   Then listen well to my words, Thor, for I have said them to none other.”

And Thor stood, cold from shock, as word after devastating word spilled from Loki’s bitter mouth.  Loki concluded the tale, his ravaged expression going blank again as he took one stumbling step away then turned as if to flee.

One long stride and Thor, thoughts racing, set gentle hands on Loki’s shoulders, resisting the urge to grab him around the waist and confine him, preventing him from fleeing.  For an instant they stayed still, while the rising wind sent dead leaves scattering around them.  Thor searched his memories for any clue in their lifetime as to what he claimed to be, but remembered nothing but the brother who had once idolized him and then become more closed off in recent years. 

And yet – Loki had always been so different from everyone else.  His quicksilver mind.  The extent of his sorcery which previously Thor had scorned and now realized was, in Asgard, without compare.  His sharp features, his whipcord panther-slim body, so different from the massive bodies of most Asgardian men.  There were more differences that he could not name in words at all, impressions he’d ignored or laughed away.  Differences that could not be defined that had lain barely beneath the surface, only occasionally glimpsed like islands in fog.

Thor could barely breathe.  His body felt barely adequate to contain everything he felt.  “Will you not face me?” Thor asked, his voice cracking with emotion.

“For what?”  Loki’s head was bent and all Thor saw was the fall of his black hair spilling down his back.  “I care not to hear your words, now that I count among your enemies.  You would have slain them all, had you time and more warriors with you.”

“Never!” he swore.  “Not ever again.  I – “ Visions of the bodies of the Jötnar he had slain rose before his vision, taunting him.  “I was wrong.  About so much.  How can I ever atone?”

Thor tightened his grip on Loki’s shoulders convulsively, then, feeling Loki was about to slip away, he let go and circled around him to face his brother.  Loki lifted his chin in an attempt at hauteur but his eyes were huge and tear-bright and he was breathing too quickly.  Thor wrapped his arms around his brother’s back and brought him close. 

They stood still, simply breathing, for a long moment.  Loki never once reached up to return the embrace, and when next he tried to step away Thor let him go.

“How you must have felt…” Thor breathed, holding out his hands. Loki stepped back further, just beyond his grasp.  “I cannot imagine the shock.”  A tremor shook through Loki’s body.

“This matters nought to me!” Thor insisted, putting every bit of conviction he possessed in those words.

Loki stared at him.  “You say such now.  Will you say the same on Asgard?”

“I was callow before, arrogant and foolish, soaking up the splendor of the sun as my right.”    Desperate, Thor sought for words of the type he had never spoken before, knowing he was on a precipice, terrified he would fail and lose everything.  “I knew not what I held until I remembered what I had lost.”  Loki’s face had lost none of its wary distrust, and he went on hotly, “Do you think my love for you is false?  Do you think I would say such words and not mean them? What can I further say to make you believe me?  Before all the realms I would swear it:  I love you and honor you and would be yours as you desire.” 

Loki searched his face.  “You are not lying,” he said at last.  “You do not do it well.”

Thor, caught between scowling and grinning, finally managed a laugh.  “Beware lest your flattering words feed my ego again.”

They stood staring at each other for another long moment.  Then Loki huffed a brief laugh.  “Don’t be so noble.  For a moment I did not recognize you.”

“I thought you wanted me to change.”  Thor offered him a tentative smile.

“I didn’t think it possible.”  Loki grinned, and an instant later they were in each other’s arms.   Thor caressed Loki’s hair, and pressed his forehead to Loki’s, breathing in his scent, pulled back, meeting Loki’s wild gaze with his own.  He tilted his head, moved his face, found Loki’s mouth, touched it softly with his lips, a delicate gentle kiss, the hint of tongue, waiting entrance. 

Loki pulled back and stepped away but before Thor could feel more than an instant of surprise and concern Loki’s hand gripped his tightly.  “Take me away from here, Thor.  Somewhere high and wild.”  There was a fierce possessive gaze in Loki’s eyes. 

“You could take us anywhere you chose yourself.”

“I want YOU to do it.  You choose.”  Loki pulled him into a crushing embrace and bit the juncture of his neck, rubbing his groin against Thor’s.  “Take me into the air, into the darkness and storm.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

Thor instantly hardened.  They had done this before, and the wildness of what Loki wanted sent heat coursing through his every cell.  He grinned back at Loki, at the taunting expression that inflamed him further.  Around them the breeze sharpened, began whipping through the leaves that yet remained on the trees, and lower still, scattering dry orange and brown shapes in whirling currents over the earth beneath.

Thor seized Loki’s upper arms in a punishing grip, and Loki began laughing, a wild mad sound.  Thor let go with his right hand, held it out, and Mjolnir leapt to his grip.

With his left arm he pressed Loki against his body.  With his right, he swung Mjolnir in an ever-swifter circle and then they were up into the air, rocketing along wind currents, then breaking upward toward dark swollen clouds.  A sudden bright flash was followed by an ear-shattering roar of thunder, so close they seemed part of the sound and light.  Rain began falling all around them, sheeting over them as Thor took them higher and higher into raging winds.  Their hair whipped around them like living things, black and blond tangling together then parting again.  Another flash and lightning filled the entire sky, a vast whiteness blanking out the world.  Thor felt its annihilating power strike him, galvanize every cell.  Where their hands met the current was the greatest, a bright aura cascading around their skin.  The white sheen of Thor’s power changed his vision, iris and pupil almost vanished until he was storm and lightning itself.  The winds flung them in different directions but didn’t break their grip.  Loki, carried upward in the sky, was a dark silhouette above Thor.  An electric aura flared around both their bodies, enveloping them, vanishing everything else away. 

Loki laughed, one ecstatic peal after another.  He thrust out one arm and turned with the wind, riding it back to Thor, grabbing Thor’s upraised arm with his other hand to complete the circuit.

Their mouths clashed together.  Thor kept his grip on Mjolnir, let her guide them wherever she and the gale took them.  Loki pulled his head back.  There was blood on his mouth from where he had bitten Thor’s lip.  Loki let go with one hand and, with a gesture their clothing vanished and a torrent of cold rain beat upon their naked bodies.

A flash of light revealed Loki, cock hard and beautiful, demanding his touch.  Loki’s pupils were blown wide and he was grinning with feral joy.  Thor thought a command and Mjolnir pulled then higher, up into the blackened clouds.  In near darkness, carried along by the force of the wind, brought together and jolted apart by the air currents, they soared even higher into the sky. 

Thor pulled Loki close and Loki grabbed him, embraced him so tightly the rain could not pass between their bodies.  Loki brought their mouths together with bruising force.  Loki’s arms were like bands of steel around Thor’s back, sharp nails scoring his skin over and over again.  Thor whirled them around, he on top then beneath, drunk on the press of their flesh, the wild ecstatic glee in Loki’s eyes, the grin widening his mouth.  His black hair whipped wildly around his face, Thor’s blond hair obscuring his vision, then blowing away again.  Their bodies were so close, their hard cocks grinding against each other, that for an instant Thor felt they were one being.  The rain came down even harder as they tumbled through the air.

Somewhere Thor found a rocky ledge and set them roughly down.  They both rolled, Mjolnir coming to rest on the stony ground.  He let it go and thrust out one arm, the other still tight around Loki’s back, bringing them to a halt.

Thor found himself where he wanted to be - lying on his back, looking up as Loki pushed himself up on hands and knees and moved over him.  Loki stared down, a manic gleam in his eyes, green and gold sparks rising from his skin.  The crawl of electricity along Thor’s skin encompassed Loki’s magic, sealed them together.  The still-driving rain hit their bodies, sparking a thousand shocks of power.  Loki claimed Thor’s mouth, rutting against him.  Thor clawed his back, sparks striking off their skin. 

Thor cried out in pleasure, his deep voice echoing the thunder, as Loki grabbed and stroked his cock.  Lightning flashed again and Loki’s face, half-lit and half in darkness, looked wild and powerful beyond measure.  His green aura flared around him, crashed into Thor’s lightning- white, raging like a second storm around them. 

Thor made a noise of protest when Loki withdrew his hand.  Then Loki reached for Thor’s legs.  Thor instantly pulled them up, helping Loki set them on Loki’s shoulders.  There was a sudden feeling of wet as Loki’s magic made the way easy.  Loki’s fingers tested his entrance, and then Loki positioned himself and Thor cried out again as Loki thrust inside with one swift move. 

Loki thrust again, one hand finding and enclosing Thor’s cock.  Thor rutted against his hand as Loki found his rhythm.  Intoxicated by pleasure, Thor gloried in the need betrayed by the ecstatic grimace on Loki’s face, as his brother thrust sure and swift, choosing the perfect angle every time.  The power crawling along their skins heightened every sensation.

Stark white lightning slashed the sky as Loki howled in ecstasy.  Thunder shook the air a second later, and invaded his every cell as the world vanished in a bright white flash as Thor came. 

Thor lay still, not thinking at all, savoring the presence of Loki collapsed across his chest.  A last burst of rain rattled down around them and died away and the clouds lightened and slowed above them in the sky. 

Loki slitted his eyes open.  One gesture, and they were lying atop the luxuriant fur of a snow bear, more than large enough for both of them.  Loki wrapped one arm around Thor’s abdomen, settled against his side, and closed his eyes in sleep.

Thor drifted awhile in the afterglow, but his troubled mind brought one thought after another to the surface, and any hint of drowsiness fled.  He turned his head to look at his brother.  _A frost giant?_   He stared at Loki for one moment, wondering what Father would tell him, should he ever awake.

The pain and anguish Loki had experienced in the telling of this secret, revealing to Thor the knowledge of who he truly was, expecting Thor to revile him, to turn away from him, cut deeply.  Thor knew that pain all too well.  He had faced such when first he had told Dad that he was homosexual.  The memory of that moment, of the vitriolic words Dad had said had left deep scars. Those words that had lain between them ever since.  And yet he never gave up on the hopes of reconciliation, never surrendered, never considered acknowledging defeat.  A year or so after that argument Dad had called and invited him home for the holidays.  He’d chosen to go, and things had been better between them in recent years.  Until today.

The door was not entirely closed, though one more ill word from Dad would be the last he would tolerate.  There was no need to think about it now. He’d be seeing him again soon.

How much harder it must have been for Loki to bear this burden in secret, to have no other like himself.  Blake, at least, had Christopher Street, his refuge in New York City, for the company of men like himself.  Loki had nothing, save Mother, and the thought of that feeling of utter aloneness he must have suffered all these years was like a knife stab in his heart.

He thought of all Loki had told him of the deeds Loki had done on Jotunheim to restore peace between their realms.   He had thought Loki had told him all.  Now, knowing who Loki truly was, he needed to know more.  Much more.  Everything Loki and Mother knew. 

Images from the nightmares he had had, of his slaughter of dozens – hundreds – of Jötnar flashed through his mind, and he felt sick.

He needed to go to Jotunheim.   Make his own reparations.  Pay all weregeld required.  Strengthen the ties Loki had made, by doing whatever would be demanded of him.

But he needed to live Blake’s life as well, for a few short years more.  He had much left to offer Midgard, in the remaining span of what would have been his mortal life.  These healing skills he had so dearly paid for in mortal time and treasure must not be wasted.

Then, once his time as Blake on Midgard was complete, he would permit Loki to create the illusion of a mortal death.  

He had much to do, in Midgard and Jotunheim both, before he could truly feel he deserved his place on Asgard.

Before he could hope to feel worthy again.

The sun created bright highlights in Loki’s long black hair and Thor was filled with a deep sense of tenderness.  He understood, gut-deep, why Loki had feared Thor’s rejection.  He swore to himself he would find every way he could to prove to Loki that his love encompassed all who he was.  He pressed his lips to Loki’s forehead.  Loki roused briefly, murmured sleepily then relaxed back into sleep.  Thor rested one hand on the smooth skin of Loki’s shoulder and lay there for a while, listening to his brother breathe. 

A frost giant.  His brother.  His lover.  His rescuer. 

Laufey’s son.  Abandoned prince of Jotunheim.

He had much to learn, much to understand.  A door had opened, and Blake had remembered Thor.  Another door had now opened, terrifying in prospect:  What else had Father lied about?  What else remained to be discovered and understood?  For the first time, he realized the enormity of all the things he did not know.  Would Father ever awake?  He remembered how proud he had been when Father had praised him for his first success at arms.  Now he hoped he could win Father’s praise for the man he was becoming.  But would he get the chance to ask him all the questions that now troubled his heart?

The sun had risen, and white clouds moved lazily across the bright blue storm-cleansed sky.  He reached back into himself, to the brief mortal part of himself that was Blake, and found an anchor there, a deep understanding of the ways of peace and healing.   He found also the part that was Thor, only now beginning to understand who he must become.

A thousand years of Thor’s memories drifted across his mind as he began sinking into sleep, twined together with Blake’s memories, weaving together, becoming whole. 

*****

Midgard’s sun was partway up in the sky when Loki woke.  For a long moment he lay there without thinking, content to remain enclosed by one of Thor’s arms.  He drew in a deep breath, let it out again, feeling remade by the lightning, an indulgence they seldom sought but often craved precisely for the danger it involved.  An extraordinary sense of peace filled him.  He knew it wouldn’t last, and savored it as he would the last sips of the finest of wines, the dregs already in sight. 

He spent another moment longer watching Thor sleep, delighted beyond measure that his brother had his power truly back.  Thor’s willingness to use the lightning soothed his worry that Thor had become so enamored of mortal life he had lost any sight of who he was, that he would disappear inside Blake’s life and become forever different.

Now he was some mixture of both and things would change again.  Somewhere in the parts of Loki’s mind that were never still he was already considering new options and plans.

For now, he was enjoying the sight of his brother’s face, calm in sleep.  Stubble had appeared on Thor’s chin and for a moment Loki was tempted to repeat a juvenile prank from centuries ago:  Thor, so proud with the first sprouting of his beard, tending it carefully, waking one day to find it growing in the same blue color as his eyes.

He passed a hand over his own smooth chin.  Beardless, like all other _seiðmenn_ , an obvious signifier of their difference from the warriors.

He drew in another breath as his sense of peace ebbed.  Envy.  Jealousy.  These memories, these emotions, so many like them, centuries old, so often feeling as vivid as if lived only yesterday.  He’d wanted everything.  

Looking at Thor now, he realized there were things he no longer wanted.  He would never have exchanged his abilities for anything, much less this paltry signifier of manhood.   But now he realized other desires had gone dim.

He wanted Thor.  He no longer wanted to **_be_** Thor. 

Thor muttered in his sleep.  Loki considered a moment, and magicked a feast for them, including that vile black brew Thor enjoyed so much.  Then, grinning, he rubbed Thor’s stubble, enjoying the rough feel against the palm of his hand.

*****

Thor started awake, already sitting as Loki snatched his hand away.  Thor looked wildly around and his gaze settled on Loki’s face. 

Loki was grinning, and Thor’s worry melted into relief.  He had been so fearful, earlier, that he would lose Loki.  So afraid that Loki would disappear without trace, too full of his fears to see how much Thor needed and loved him.

He took in a deep breath and smiled as he inhaled the delightful odor of coffee.  He was pleased to see Loki had magicked a repast for them: fruit and meat and bread and cheese and wine spread out upon the white fur.  Loki settled crosslegged on the other side of the food, now watching him thoughtfully.

He poured a cup of coffee and helped himself to an apple.  He gave Loki a sunny smile, and Loki’s lips curved up. 

Loki bit into an apple and savored the taste.  He set it aside, his face now serious.  “Do you still wish to stay on Midgard?”

Here it was, Thor felt with foreboding.  Loki’s expression betrayed nothing, or rather everything.  How had he never noticed the way a thousand expressions could chase across Loki’s face and vanish in a mere moment?  Had he truly been that unobservant?

Thor set his jaw.  “Yes.” 

Loki shifted, moving his shoulders.  “Your mortal father.  You are staying for him, are you not?”

“Not only for him.”  He pressed on, determined to make Loki understand.  “There is so much more I need to do here.  I’ve done more good in these few years as Blake than I ever did as Thor.  I have battles to fight here, battles of healing and life.  There is much good I can still do here.  Donald Blake’s skills are needed.  In what is left of his brief lifetime I can help heal many.  What I have learned here would be wasted on Asgard.  It will not be long.” 

“No,” Loki said.  “A few decades or less, as you said.”

“Less, I expect,” Thor said.  “I’m 40 years old, in mortal terms.  That’s half my mortal life, and more.  Men often retire from work at 65.  My dad… is 68 years old.  He… well, some mortals live to be 100, but it’s not common.”

When Loki stayed silent, he went on.  “Will you stay here, with me?”

Loki’s eyes went calm, quiet, determined, the slightest bit distanced, and Thor felt a stab of fear.  “And if I say no?”

Thor resisted the temptation to demand, to order, then remembered the flare concealed before by resentment and knew he was being tested.  “It’s your choice.”  And by the startled expression in Loki’s eyes he knew he’d said the right thing.

Loki looked down, closed his eyes for a brief instant.  His gaze hardened.  “It is truly nothing to you, then.  That I am Jötunn?  _That you have fucked a Jötunn?_ ”

Thor reached out, took his hand.  Loki stared at him fiercely.  Thor had been stunned when he’d learned the truth, and Loki certainly knew that.  Thor had done his best to reassure Loki, but now understood that all he had said bore repeating.   “What can I say to prove it is nothing to me?  You are Loki, you are my brother and so much more.  That is a part of you, simply one I never knew.  I love you and want you and need you.  I swear to you that is the truth,” he said with every bit of conviction he possessed. 

Loki’s expression softened.  Thor paused, searched Loki’s face.  For an instant Loki looked utterly lost, doubt, then wonder, then pure sentiment shining in his eyes.  He interlaced his fingers with Thor’s and gripped his hand tightly.  He gave Thor a brilliant smile, and Thor could see no lie behind it.

Remembering everything that Loki had told him, all the questions he hadn’t thought to ask arose in his mind.  “It has been many years since my banishment.  Many years you have known this truth.”

“Yes.”  Loki plucked at the snow bear fur with one hand, seemingly unaware of the gesture. 

Thor thought of the decision he had made mere hours ago.  “I wish to make amends to the Jötnar.  I wish to know them as a people.  There are many troubles on this Realm between various peoples who do not seek to understand each other.  I have learned much here.  I must make my own weregeld to Jotunheim.”

Loki’s eyebrows lifted, and an ironic smile twisted his mouth.  “Though their King has indicated he is open to such, he disbelieves that you would ever choose to do so.”

Thor absorbed this.  “He thinks I have not the courage?”

Loki’s gaze bore into his.  “He does not.”

Thor took in a deep breath, fighting back anger at this challenge to his courage.  It was past time to become enraged by petty insults.  “He is wrong,” he said at last.  “I need your help.  I must know more about him, more about your sojourn on Jotunheim.  I wish to know all you might tell me, of the time you spent there, of all you learned.” 

Loki shifted restlessly.  “It is a poor place, having suffered much privation since the war.  They have not enough food for all who live there.”

Thor went cold, thinking of the horrifying footage he had seen just a few years ago of all who had died in the famine in Bangladesh, appalled to know that Asgard would leave even enemies to starve.  “I knew naught of this.”

“How could we know?  Were we ever told aught but that they were our most dire enemies?”

Thor swallowed hard against the lump in his throat.  “You must have spoken to many, while there.”

“Yes,” Loki said.  “Engineers and mages, for the most part.”

A thought suddenly struck Thor.  “Does Queen Farbauti live?”

Loki went utterly still, and when he spoke his lips barely moved, as if they had gone stiff and frozen.  “I do not know, nor do I wish to know.”

“So.” Thor swallowed, alarmed by his mistake.  Feeling his way across treacherous ground, he said, “Laufey.  What manner of man is he?  Did you spend much time with him?”

“A little as possible,” Loki bit off.  “He is a King, one such as Odin.  His mind is on his Realm, on what he could do to protect it, to gain advantage over others.  It’s the greatest game of all, as you know:  territory, power, and glory, and every war, every battle, every trick, every deceit that Kings can bend to their purpose is in service of it.  It is all the same.  Laufey, Odin, it makes no difference.  They all follow the same rules, set in their courses by the Norns.”

Thor thought about this, thought about all the questions he would ask Father should he ever awake.  And that thought in itself was distressing, for what if he did not?

Thor fought off fear and worry.  Then, knowing it was dangerous, he couldn’t keep himself from asking, “Does he know who you truly are?”

Loki stood so abruptly that wine spilled from a goblet, a splash of red on the white fur.

Thor followed, already reaching out. 

“No!  He does not know!  I will never tell him such.”  Loki huffed and began pacing back and forth.  “I have no father.  I will never think of him as such.  I will not think along that course.” 

Loki stepped into the spilled wine and stopped.  “He left me on a frozen rock to die!  I could scarce bear his company.  It is only to save you that I did so.”  Loki’s eyes were huge with emotion. 

“I shouldn’t have asked,” Thor said, cold with fear at the depth of his error.  “You saved me.  I will do anything I can for you – just let me know what you need,” Thor said desperately, wanting to unsay the words he had just said, groping for the words to get Loki to listen, to understand, to calm.

“You can stop looking at me as if you think I might break!” Loki said hotly.

“I’m sorry,” Thor said, and a startled, pleased expression appeared on Loki’s face.  “I won’t speak of this again, unless you should wish to do so.”

“I **_may_** speak to you about these things.  Some other time.”  Loki lifted his head imperiously, his words harsh, bitten off.  He glanced down, frowned with annoyance at the sight of the spilled wine, and made a gesture.  The stain vanished. 

Loki was smiling brightly when he looked back up.  Thor’s heart sank at the clear falsehood of the expression.  He was suddenly struck by how familiar that expression was.  He’d seen it many times before, mostly since they’d both achieved manhood.  How many times had Loki been putting on a false face to conceal pain?

“Shall we return to your home?” Loki was asking.  “You have much to do, I believe, to restore your profession there.”  Loki stopped, searching Thor’s face, clearly finding something amiss in his expression.

“So, you’ll stay?”  Thor gave him a brilliant, hopeful smile, but he couldn’t bury his fears and worries.  Everywhere he looked, everything he considered, led to his realization that there was more he needed to understand.  He had assumed Loki would always be there, by his side, when he needed him.  It was only now beginning to occur to him that he needed to do the same for Loki.

Loki was still watching him closely.  “As you said.  It won’t be for long.  And there are still some mortal cities I have not explored.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find Midgard dull.”

“I find _Asgard_ dull,” Loki gave him a superior smile.  “The same people.  The same ideas.  Nothing ever changes in golden Asgard.”

“But now that you are King….”

“I’m not King.”

“You are Co-Regent.  That is King in all but name.”

“Ah, but there’s the truth of it.  Names have meaning.”  He shrugged.  “In any event, the people will want you to be King if Odin doesn’t wake up.

“I don’t know if I want that anymore,” Thor said slowly, the realization arising from deep within him.  “From what you said, you have been a fine King.  Why not continue on that course?”

Loki stared at him, for once at a loss for words.  “Surely you jest.  Is it not your right to be King?”

“I don’t know **_what_** I want anymore,” Thor admitted.  “If I had gone on the way I had been going my recklessness would have led to war and countless more deaths.”  The deep pain at these thoughts impelled his next words.  “You should rule.  You are wiser than I am.”

Loki’s expression cleared and changed to one of genuine pleasure.  “Brother, would either of us ever have suspected those words would ever pass your lips?”

Thor managed to chuckle and slap Loki’s shoulder.  “I am no longer that hotheaded fool.”  He enveloped Loki in a tight embrace, which his brother returned full measure. 

Loki looked at him skeptically, but before he could open his mouth to say another word, Thor stepped back and said, “Do you think our people would want to choose their own leader as they do here and other parts of Midgard?”

“You really think —“  Loki started, stopped again.  “From Odinson to Borson to Búrison, back all the millennia, it is your family who have ruled.  Are there truly any but outlander enemies who would deny us this right?”

“I don’t know,” Thor said.  “It’s not something I ever questioned.  Have you?”

“Didn’t father say it all?  We were born to be kings.”  Loki’s lips curled bitterly.  “Though how he expected to accomplish the feat of placing me on Jotunheim’s throne he did not say.  Odin the All-Wise.   Doubtless he expected whatever plans he had made to burst into full fruition because he willed it so.”

Thor was aware of the sarcasm and insincerity covering up pain in Loki’s voice, and realized that some of Loki’s behaviors and words in the past that he had once thought opaque were now more clear.  Another insight to be grateful to Donald Blake for. 

Loki considered, and grinned.  “But maybe you’re right and we should follow this kingdom’s lead – or whatever you call it.  I can just imagine the chaos should we ever put the leadership of Asgard up to a vote.”

Thor smiled at Loki’s expression.  “We have much to think about.  Or – ” he added, at Loki’s change of expression, “ ** _I_** have much to think about.  I have no doubt that I merely following in pathways of thought you’ve already explored.

“Not all of them,” Loki admitted.  “I certainly never imagined you saying you did not want to be King.”  He huffed a laugh.  “I am imagining the looks on all of their faces.”  His lips widened in a satisfied smile.  “I will stay, for now.”  At Thor’s exclamation of delight, he continued, “But when I am needed in Asgard, I must return.  And so, perhaps, should you, if only for brief times.”

“Of course.  I will always be there when the people need me,” Thor said.

“And,” Loki traced a symbol with one fingertip on Thor’s wine glass and offered to him.  “I wouldn’t want you to forget yourself again.”

“Then you need to be here to remind me, whenever you like.” 

Thor took a sip and his eyes widened at the strange sparkle of the flavor on his tongue.  “Truly the finest mead I have ever tasted.  What spell have you placed on it?”

“A spell of protection, so Odin may never alter your mind again.  I learned early how to prevent what Odin did – but it took so much longer to reverse it.”

Loki looked extremely pleased with himself, and Thor, near overpowered with love and gratitude reached out to embrace him.  “Thank you, brother.”

Loki returned the embrace, and Thor was grateful they had not bothered to re-clothe themselves.  After a long and pleasurable time in each other’s arms, they turned their attention to the feast Loki had conjured.

Loki poured mead into golden jewel-encrusted goblets and handed one to Thor, who took a long appreciative swallow.  He realized he was smiling foolishly at Loki, and didn’t care.  “Los Angeles, Bombay, Berlin, Rio de Janerio, Riyahd, Nairobi…”  He went on to list all the cities Loki had named as part of his explorations.  “Where on Midgard _haven’t_ you been?”

Loki grinned at him.  He took a sip, and hummed, a speculative look settling on his face.  “Oh many places.  Shall we explore?  That is, when you are not pursuing the duties of a healer.” 

“Any time, brother.  I wouldn’t want you to be bored.”

Loki hummed.  “There has to be _something_ interesting to do on Midgard.  The All-Father left some interesting artifacts here.  The berserkr staff can stay in pieces right where they are.  But the Tesseract…  Now that has possibilities….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got lots of ideas for the next story in this series and plan to start writing early in 2018. I hope you enjoyed my story. I love feedback, and if you're so inclined, please leave a kudo.


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